


Caught between Heaven and Earth

by 0urhappygirl500



Category: Gravity Falls, Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Evil Prospit Dreamers, Ghost Hunter Derse Dreamers, Of Heaven and Earth, Slow Build, Someone give Mabel a hug, Spin Off of, Spirits AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0urhappygirl500/pseuds/0urhappygirl500
Summary: In this world there are Hunters and Spirits two sides of the same coin, Dipper and Mabel Pines are two twins destined to be trapped on opposite sides.This is a story inspired by Weevilo707's Of Heaven and Earth. And is set around the same time as that fic and in the same universe. Hunter and Spirit shenanigans are everywhere.





	1. Caught Between The Beginning Of Our Story

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Of Heaven and Earth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3065705) by [Weevilo707](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707). 



Ah, Summer break. A time for leisure, recreation, and taking 'er easy. Unless of course you’re me…. Oh you want to know why? Well my name is Dipper Pines and I am a hunter. What’s a hunter? They’re people that fight against evil creatures that hunt people for food known as spirits. Now I know what you’re thinking this sounds like something from a bad horror novel and I guess you’d be right but believe me it’s all too real. Why do people decide to risk their lives fighting against these monsters? Rest assured, there's a perfectly logical explanation.

\---  
Dipper Pines looked at his phone for the fifth time since coming to the beach, it was already dark and he was starting to regret letting his twin talk him into this. This always happened she’d get an idea and he’d be dragged into it, not that he minded really since it could also work the other way. There have been times where he’s the one that dragged her into stuff though it seems like he’s usually the one being dragged than doing the dragging.

It’s not that he minded helping out his sister though; it’s just that he didn’t want to get in trouble with their parents for staying out so late. Which has happen to him. Multiple times. The only reason he even agreed to stay out this late was because Mabel seemed really excited for whatever scrapbooking project she needed the seashells for.

“Mabel, don’t you have enough sea shells already? Come on mom’s going to kill us for being out this late,” he tiredly yelled after the girl searching along the beach, his twin didn’t even look up before answering him.

“You can never have enough seashells bro! Bro! Besides if mom and dad were worried about us they’d have told us to come home already, did you get a call from them?” Mabel replied and he considered lying just so they could go home but he knew she’d see through that.

“No, not yet” He answered her truthfully as he watched Mabel pick up another seashell and put it in her brightly decorated bag. He supposed it would be faster if he helped instead of just telling her to hurry up be he had helped and she had to have had enough seashells for at least ten scrapbooks by now.

“See! Nothing to worry about yet!” His twin said cheerfully.

Dipper didn’t know where his sister got her energy from and he was caught between not wanting to know and wanting some of that energy for himself.

“Dipper come over here and help me with my bad” Mabel called him over and Dipper walked over to her. Mabel was holding her bag open so he was able to look inside and see the seashells that she had collected.

Well technically it was the seashells they had collected Mabel having roped him into to helping her collect the seashells so she could decorate her new scrapbook she was working on, even if he wasted an entire afternoon on this he didn’t really mind since Mabel’s scrapbooks were pretty cool.

Dipper took the bag from his sister and was immediately struck with how heavy the bag was nearly dropping the bag in the process.

“Careful” Mabel said as Dipper struggled not to let the bag fall, he couldn’t tell if she was worried about him or the seashells.

“Mabel! How can you carry that?” He asked in amazement because no way were there only seashells in here, he’s been holding the bag for less than five minutes and his arms might fall off.

“Not everyone has noodle arms like you bro,” the girl said taking the bag so he wouldn’t drop it.

“Are you sure you don’t just have super strength” Dipper said shaking his hands and wrists once he was free of the weight.

“All women have super strength Dipper it’s why we’re perfect! That’s what girl power really is!” his sister declared giving him a playful smile “But my point about your noodle arms still stands” she finished as he rolled his eyes at her.

It’s not like he could argue much about the noodle arms thing but he has been getting stronger, he was a growing boy after all and any way it wasn’t like he was weak or anything. His strength was around average if not slightly higher than average any one would seem weak compared to Mabel probably.

Yeah ok he wasn’t the best at sports that required much ‘physical strength’ as well but that’s because he wasn’t interested in them ok.

“Any way, you’ve got a lot,” he observed getting the conversation topic back to the seashells and yeah there was no way Mabel was going to use all those for one scrapbook. Either she decided to have a stockpile of seashells for her next project or she just wanted to bring home a bunch of seashells.

Knowing her it might be a mixture of both really.

“Yeah maybe,” Mabel said thoughtfully.

“Maybe? Mabel you’ve got enough for like fifth teen scrapbooks!” Dipper said in exasperation.

“I think we’ve got enough we should head back home before we actually get a call from mom and dad asking where we are” he insisted “besides we can always come back tomorrow if you need more” he continued when he saw the girl about to argue.

“But their anniversary is soon Dipper! We have to go into critical party planning mode!” Mabel argued.

Ah so that’s what she was doing.

He looked at his sister in disbelief “Wait is that what the scrapbook is for? Their anniversary isn’t for like two more months Mabel!” he tried to reason with his twin.

“You have to plan these things in advance Dipper; the theme of their anniversary will be Four Seasons! The seashells are for the summer theme!” Mabel explained in excitement.

“Shouldn’t I get a say in the planning” He complained as he watched his sister role her eyes.

“I’ll have you know you were the inspiration for this idea Dipping Sauce” Mabel told him and continued on to explain what she meant before he could ask, “I saw you earlier pressing leaves for you’re nerd books-“

“Mabel!” He interrupted her because there was nothing wrong of getting good leaf samples of difference species of trees you need to know these thing is you ever want to be a great adventurer and or scientist. Scientist Adventurer.

“Don’t worry, I think it’s great and it’s lots of fun” Mabel noted and yeah she had said that during the times she had helped him with it. In fact she was the one who found out a good method to press the leaves to help him out when he first started doing it.

“Anyway they reminded me of autumn leaves and so I thought we could use them to make an autumn theme! And why stop there? We can do summer and winter and spring as well!” Mabel said getting more and more excited.

“And we’re starting with summer?” He asked raising an eyebrow at her.

“It’s the best season!” Mabel said before closing her bag.

“Are we ready to go home now?” He asked hopefully. His twin nodded and started heading back to the car the two had used to get to the beach.

“It’s getting a bit too dark to see any shells anyway plus I’m getting hungry and mom said she was making lasagna” Mabel replied.

“I’m driving!” his sister yelled as he unlocked the car and yeah, no she was not driving, frankly he was surprised she still had her license after the noodle incident.

“Absolutely not” Dipper said shooting down his sister’s suggestion causing her to complain as she got inside the passenger seat of their parents car.

“Fine but I’m choosing the music” Mabel said getting out a CD and oh boy this was either going to be a song they both liked or something that would make him wish he was dead.

The drive back was uneventful except for his sister singing along to the music for most of the drive. He might have joined in a couple of times but dang it; top 40 hits are in the top 40 for a reason! They’re catchy!

Once they got close to their neighborhood though he noticed a crowd near their block, his twin gave him a look and from the confusion on her face he figured that there wasn’t an event or anything going on. If there were an event in their area Mabel would have been the first to know. To be honest she’d probably have helped organize it.

“What do you think is going on?” Mabel said, looking out of the window next to her as she did. Dipper shrugged his shoulders as he slowed the car down to a halt before answering.

“I’m not sure.” He told her but his best guess was that there had been an accident or something. Not a lot happened in the area so that usually caused a big stir when something did happen.

Mabel began unbuckling her seat belt before speaking to him. “Well sitting around here wondering what’s going on isn’t going to help us figure out what’s going on so let’s check it out”. He nodded in agreement as he turned off the cars engine and unbuckled his seat belt, quickly following his sister out the car.

Sirens and the frantic conversations of the people around him filled his ears once stepping out the car. He turned to his sister who looked a bit unsure of her self all of a sudden as she had stopped in place.

“You ok?” He asked and his twin nodded in reply.

“Yeah, there’s just a weird smell in the air” Mabel said, and she was right about that. There was a smell of smoke so maybe there had been a fire or something but there was another smell that he wasn’t sure how to describe, a smell that was unfamiliar to him.

“Come on”, he said taking his sisters hand and leading her through the crowd of people that had gathered. He could hear their conversations as he and his sister passed them. 

“Can you believe something like this happened?”

“I heard it was a faulty gas line”

“I heard it was some dodgy electrical wiring”

“I was talking to the fire men earlier and it looks like it might have been both!”

“I can’t believe they didn’t notice!”

“They’d have probably noticed the gas before anything happened but with electrical wiring you won’t be able to tell, you have to get those things checked regularly”

“How awful, Joe make sure you call a man to check our electrics.”

“We’re probably fine but after seeing something like this you can never be too careful.” 

“Ah that poor family”

“They probably didn’t even know anything was wrong”

“They had two kids same age as mine, the boy was a member of the marching band with my Charlie”

“Oh no the children too! How awful!”

“They only found two bodies though”

“Kids are small they could have been burnt away completely”

“Teens are hardly small”

“Look I think that’s them!” 

“Thank god they’re still alive at least,” Someone said as he and his sister got closer to their home. Mabel freed her hand from his and ran towards where their home should be.

He saw her be stopped by a fireman as where the place they grew up once was there was now a just a pile of smoke, ash and rubble.

“Hey can you tell us what happened?” Dipper asked as he ran to his sister’s side. 

“There was an explosion inside this house we’re currently dealing with the situation you kids should go home,” The man said causing protest from his sister.

“But that IS our home!” Mabel practically yelled and there were whispers all around them as he noticed the fireman’s eye dawn with realization before the man diverted his gaze away from the twins.

“It’s the Pine’s twins”

“Oh God who’s going to tell them”

“They’re so young”

“Could you tell us what happened?” Dipper repeated his question with more intensity this time with slight panic creeping into his voice as he glared at the man.

He tried to ignore the noise of the crowd’s whispers spilling into his ears; it was fine he was panicking for no reason! He was just over thinking things just like Mabel always says he does. His parents were fine! They were fine! They were fine! He just needed this guy to tell them what was going on!

His thoughts were suddenly distracted by a chocked gasp from his sister and he turned to look at what she saw.

Being wheeled away were two bodies covered by sheets, a charred hand poking out from underneath one of the sheets.

Dipper suddenly had an idea what that unfamiliar smell was. Either it was the smell of burnt flesh or it was the smell of death. 

“Dipper” Mabel’s voice called to him as he tore his eyes away from the bodies. His sister’s voice was desperate; there were tears in her eyes and it looked as if she was silently begging for him to tell her that those bodies weren’t their parents.

God did he wish he could tell her that but no sound was coming out of his mouth what ever he could have said or would have said was stuck in his throat.

The noise of the whispered conversations continued to pour into his ears and despite being whispers felt louder than thunder.

“Someone has to tell them”

“This is so sad”

“At least they weren’t in the house”

He wanted to grab his sister and run, but there was nowhere to run. It was like they were trapped, oh god this can’t be happening. Please don’t let this be happening. Why is this happening? Why? Why? Why?

And that’s when someone stepped out of the crowd. No he knew this man. Mabel was friends with his daughter, though really Mabel was friends with everyone but this guy knew their family. He’d gone to high school with their mom his name was Mr. Poe or something.

“Dipper, Mabel…” Mr. Poe began before hesitating.

Mr. Poe seemed to take a moment to collect himself before continuing.

“Children, I'm afraid I must inform you of an extremely unfortunate event.”

This can’t be happening.

\---

“I'm very, very sorry to tell you this but your parents have perished in a fire that has destroyed your entire home.”

It felt like she cried for days, it was funny out of her and her brother she was usually the happier of the two. But ever since those words were spoken the tears just wouldn’t stop. She didn’t even meow herself to sleep she just cried, she cried more tears than she even knew she had until nearly three days after the incident she had finally cried herself out.

Oh she was certain that there were more tears in her. Most likely her body just needed a chance to reload or something, which was probably for the best if she didn’t want her eyes getting too dry. But now that the tears had finally stopped she decided she was done with crying.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t sad any more, far from it. It still felt like her entire would had collapsed which she guesses it had but she didn’t want to cry any more. Out of her and her brother she was always known as the happier of the two.

There was no way she could ever just get over this though, though the pain would probably fade over time she bet that it would always be there.

Mabel nodded to herself as she sat up on the bed she had been lying down on. That’s it she had decided!

She was going to internalize this shit until she died.

She licked her lips, which tasted salty from any tears that had fallen on them. Mabel looked around the room she was in; she and Dipper had been staying at a friend of the families place until their only living relative could come and pick them up. Apparently he was their Great Uncle, he lived in Oregon and was supposed to be really smart so maybe he and Dipper could do nerd things together. She hoped Dipper would like that.

It was kind of weird that she and Dipper had never met the guy but apparently he mostly kept to himself, she kind of wondered why there wasn’t a closer relative that could take them in but the Pines family had kind of had some bad luck. 

For the past 30 years members of the family had began to die in mysterious accidents and when mom married dad members of her family started to die two. So in a way her parents were just another two bodies fallen victim to the Pines family curse.

Oh yeah because of all the death there were rumors that the Pines family was cursed, she didn’t know the basics just that triangles were unlucky for them. A death omen or something. Not that it mattered curses and supernatural stuff was more Dipper’s kind of thing.

She got up and walked to the door where Dipper had left a plate of toast for her, she hasn’t felt hungry since that night but she guesses it was important to eat.

Mabel chewed the toast thoughtfully as she started deciding what to do next, it had been three days since the fire and in a few hours she was going to meet her Great Uncle Stanford, he had been making arrangements to organize the funeral, get official custody or her and Dipper and get them enrolled in the high school in his town.

She thinks the name was Gravity Falls?

Her Great Uncle Stanford had basically decided to do everything that needed to be done before meeting her and her twin. Which she guesses could be appreciated but she wished the process felt more personal. They were supposed to be family!

So today was the last day she was going to stay in this room, so she guesses she should pack. Well she would but she had nothing to pack. Nearly everything she and Dipper had gone up in smoke all she had was her twin now and she didn’t really have to pack him.

Well she could but she didn’t have to. Dipper was bringing himself. The room she had been staying in was a stereotypical guest room that she and Dipper had been sharing. She guesses it was weird for kids their age to be sharing a room but neither of them wanted to be alone right now.

Mabel finished the toast and put the plate back down before going to where her bag was and began to look through it. She found what she was looking for at the bottom of the bag and pulled out her phone, she wasn’t the only one going through a hard time right now. She needed to be there for her twin.

Dipper had in a way kind of shut down, he’d been moving on autopilot and just been focused on if she was ok. That wasn’t right they needed to look out for each other!

She sent her twin a message.

glitteryTurnaround started pestering galvanicTactician

GT: hey  
GT: It's a-me!  
GT: A-Mabel!  
GT: you ok?  
GT: I should be asking you that.  
GT: Dipper we’re both going through the same thing!  
GT: and we both no neither of us are really ok  
GT: maybe we will be later, but not right now  
GT: Yeah, I know what you mean.  
GT: So this is grief huh?  
GT: It sucks  
GT: it super sucks!  
GT: it sucks more than a vacuum cleaner!  
GT: get it? because vacuum cleaners pick up dirt on carpets by doing a sucky thing  
GT: vacuum cleaners don’t actually suck in the ‘this is awful kind of way’  
GT: because they’re actually really useful  
GT: especially when glitter is everywhere.  
GT: I mean glitter everywhere isn’t really a problem but some people don’t appreciate it.  
GT: Well it really gets everywhere Mabel!  
GT: I'm unappreciated in my time  
GT: ...  
GT: Dipper?  
GT: Yeah?  
GT: are YOU gonna be ok?  
GT: I mean you’ve spent all this time worrying about me and wheat needs to be done next.  
GT: but I worry about you!  
GT: you’re my brother after all  
GT: . . . .  
GT: Dipper?  
GT: Yeah, I’m well like you said ok isn’t the right word at the moment.  
GT: But yeah, you’ve basically been the only thing keeping me sane at the moment.  
GT: It’s just I need to do something.  
GT: So I’ve been doing everything else I could  
GT: what else needs to be done?  
GT: Nothing everything is all set.  
GT: Our Great Uncle Stanford is going to be here in a few hours and there’s nothing for me to do.  
GT: It’s driving me crazy.  
GT: why don’t you come up here then?  
GT: we can talk face to face and pass the time.  
GT: Yeah, ok sounds good. I’ll be right up.

galvanicTactician ceased pestering glitteryTurnaround

 

Mabel sighed as she signed out of Pesterchum and waited for her twin, she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long though and she new that they’d both feel better with the other beside them. Her twin walked through the door as soon as finished that thought.

There are many ways you could handle helping someone with grief but Mabel had an idea had an idea of what fight work for them.

Mabel stood in front of her twin with her arms outstretched. “Awkward sibling hug?” She asked; her brother looked at her before opening his arms and answering her.

“Awkward sibling hug” The boy said as they hugged each other. “Pat, pat” Both of them said at once as they awkwardly patted each other’s back in the middle of the hug like they always do.

She spent the rest of the day just hanging out with her twin, they talked about how they were feeling but didn’t go too deeply into it, they talked about what might happen next, they talked about random things. Mabel even went on a tangent about her favorite boy band, sorry Dipper but Sev’ral Timez is amazing!

It’s funny how these things can be. Even when you feel like your world collapsed the rest of the world keeps on turning so you’ve just got to pick yourself up so you can keep on turning with it.

Yeah, she’ll be ok. No matter what happens she’s going to pick herself up and she’s going to be ok. More importantly they’ll be ok. Her brother has got her back and she’s got his. Just like always.

It wasn’t long before their relative finally showed up.

They were coming down stairs with the few things they had when they saw him standing in the doorway talking to their host.

“I really have to thank you for looking after the two of them for the past few days, it took a while to organize everything before coming down here, ah there they are,” He was saying before seeing them.

Dipper was hesitant; he was studying the man he looked like he was in his 60’s she guessed, he had some silver streaks in his hair and, where those where those sideburns? He could probably pass for handsome what with the cleft chin and all. 

Dipper still was looking at him hesitantly, and she should have expected this. New people weren’t exactly his thing but they were her thing. Some one had to start this interdiction off; the three of them were going to live together after all. And besides this guy was supposed to be family.

“Hi there I’m Mabel!” she said as cheerfully as she could and gave him a smile, got to make a good first impression. And held out her hand for him to shake.

He gave her a warm smile and then the man bent down a bit since he was taller than her and took her hand to shake.

“Greetings. Do kids still say greetings? I haven't been in the know about what is ‘hip’ for a really long time.” He said and ok she had a feeling that she was going to like him. But then again she would always love her family.

As he was shaking her hand she noticed his hand had an extra finger, “Whoa, a six-fingered handshake? It's a full finger friendlier than normal!” She blurted out with some excitement and as soon as the word left her mouth she was worried she had insulted him.

Instead he laughed which instantly calmed her down, “Heha, I like this kid. She's weird.” He said with fondness in his voice, and this looked like they were going to get along great. 

Dipper had perked up when Mabel had mentioned their Great Uncle’s extra finger. He always did like weird things, maybe because of his super cool birthmark. Anyway it was time to introduce these two, Stanford was still holding one of her hands so she used her other hand to gesture to her twin.

“And while I know I’m a tough act to follow that awesome guy over there is my brother Dipper!” She said proudly as her brother stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Dipper Pines,” he said simply and their Great Uncle let go of her hand to shake his, “Nice to meet you Dipper I’m Stanford,” he said shaking her brothers hand.

“Nice to meet you Great Uncle Stanford,” Dipper said firmly but it looked like he was relaxing a bit. “Please call me Ford”, Ford said warmly.

“Nice to meet you Grunkle Ford!” Mabel said after he had let go of Dipper’s hand, the two turned and stared at Mabel in confusion.

“Grunkle?” They both said in near unison and Mabel smiled before explaining.

“I just came up with it! Great Uncle is a bit of a mouthful so I combined the two words into Grunkle!” she explained with pride.

Dipper seemed to recover from his original confusion first and spoke, “I’m, I’m not sure I want to call him that” Dipper said.

She gave a little frown at before turning to Ford, “Do you not like it?” She asked a bit worried. However Ford merely gave a small chuckle.

“You’re very creative Mabel, feel free to call me anything you like.” Her Grunkle Ford said and Mabel sighed in relief at that, she noticed Dipper smiling to himself and yeah she was happy that this new family member didn’t mind her originality.

Even she knew that it could be a bit much for some people.

Ford turned to Dipper and continued speaking “And Dipper please feel free to call me anything you are comfortable with as well” he said.

All in all she figures this was a pretty good introduction.

The funeral was happening later that week so Grunkle Ford had gotten some rooms in a motel for them, Dipper and Grunkle Ford seemed to hit it off pretty quickly talking about nerd things and other junk.

She and Dipper spent most of their time before the funeral basically saying goodbye to Piedmont California; the place where they grew up. Saying goodbye to old friends and places.

There weren’t that many people to say goodbye to since she and Dipper were never the most popular in the world. Not that it mattered since they had each other.

Still it was sad that they had to leave behind everything they knew like this. Goodbye Piedmont California hello Gravity Falls Oregon.

When the funeral finally came there were more people than she expected, people her mom and dad knew, people who were friends with her and Dipper, a lot of people from school, which made sense since the student body usually helped when an incident happened to a student.

People offered their condolences, some felt sincere some didn’t. To be honest there was a kind of numb feeling through all this. Dipper was right grief does stuck.

And just like that the funeral of her parents the last thing keeping her and Dipper here was over and they left for Gravity Falls that night. It might be weird that they left so suddenly but Grunkle Ford insisted he needed to get back to his work; apparently he had an important job there or something. She wasn’t sure what he did exactly, whatever he did he’s supposed to be in charge so he technically could skip all the days he wanted but he seemed to be convinced that nothing would run effectively without him.

She wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep on the ride over to Gravity Falls but the next thing she knew Dipper was shaking her awake.

“Mabel, Mabel wake up!” Her twin said as she groggily came out of the bliss of unconsciousness.

“No. Never. Let me sleep forever.” She said sleepily batting away her brother’s hand.

She heard her brother sigh before he spoke again “Mabel we’re here” and she opened her eyes at that.

Dipper began getting out of the car as she took the first look at the place that was meant to be their new home; it was a shack by the edge of the woods, it looked a bit old but hand a sturdy feel to it. 

Grunkle Ford was carrying their things inside and she and Dipper began to follow him, the inside looked a mess with papers and lab equipment everywhere but she could work with this. She could make this place into a home.

“Please excuse the mess, I’m used to living on my own so I’m familiar with this lab equipment but you two aren’t so I’ll be clearing most of this away, now I’m afraid that since I can’t have the whole house just for my equipment anymore I’ll be moving all of this into the other bedroom so you two will have to share the room in the attic.” Grunkle Ford said stepping over several boxes.

Yes this place definitely needed a touch of Mabel.

“Oh yeah that’s fine,” Dipper said following him. And Mabel nodded.

“Yeah we used to stay in each others rooms all the time growing up.” She added and Grunkle Ford nodded at that.

“Thank you two for putting up with the inconvenience children that is greatly appreciated however you are still growing so you want more privacy we can always put a curtain to divide the two rooms” Grunkle Ford suggested. 

“That might be a good idea, but I don’t think we’ll need to right away.” Dipper replied and she nodded at that because yeah they’d be fine for a while no worries.

“Ok well enjoy your new room you two” Grunkle Ford said as he opened the door to the attic bedroom. There was a triangle window at the end of it and two beds with pink and blue bed sheets each. Oh she definitely had dibs on the pink one.

Mabel ran over to the bed she was going to claim as her own and took out posters from magazines that she brought to hang over her bed. Dipper walked over to the direction of the other bed.

“This attic is amazing. Check out all my splinters!” Mabel said as she finished putting up the posters and presented her splinter to her twin and Grunkle.

“And there's a goat on my bed.” Dipper observed and Mabel ran over to the goat’s side in excitement.

“Hey, friend.” She said as she held out her arm, and the goat began to chew on her sleeve. 

“Oh! Yes, you can keep chewing on my sweater,” She said laughing to herself.

“Gompers no!” Grunkle Ford said shooing the goat away.

“Why’d you send him out?” she protested and she could feel Dipper rolling his eyes and he could role them all he wanted animals were amazing and deserved all the love.

“I’m sorry about Gompers he sort of showed up one day and basically lives around here now, personally I blame Miss Corduroy for constantly feeding him,” Grunkle Ford elaborated and she needed no more context because that was already perfect.

“How did he get into your house?” Dipper asked putting his stuff on his bed and Grunkle Ford looked exasperated before answering.

“I suppose Miss Corduroy let him in as a small prank of some sort, I wanted to get to the two of you as soon as I could so I didn’t give her much explanation as to why I leaving or where I was going which looking back might be rather frustrating for her when I asked her to watch the house while I was gone.” Grunkle Ford explained and wow he was barley gone for less than four days did he really need his house to be watched?

Well that wasn’t as important as another question she was thinking of. “Soooooooo who is ‘Miss Corduroy’? Someone special?” Mabel asked in a singsong voice and Dipper groaned from his end of the room.

“Dipper hush,” Mabel said to her twin as Grunkle Ford answered her question, “Oh Miss Corduroy is a young lady who works for me, I’ve been supplying equipment to her family for years and she works as an apprentice of sorts under me.”

She face fell a bit at that, she’d been hoping that Grunkle Ford had some romancey stuff going on in his life but nope, but Miss Corduroy sounded interesting regardless. Wonder what she’s like.

“Equipment what kind of equipment?” Dipper asked curiously and yeah she could see why her twin would be curious about that.

Instead of answering like he had done for previous questions Grunkle Ford looked away, “Well you children might find the whole explanation a bit boring and besides you’ve both had a long journey over hear you must be tiered. I’ll leave you both to make yourselves at home.” Grunkle Ford said before leaving the room.

Once Grunkle Ford had left the room there was a moment of silence and she could see Dipper narrow his eyes, “Dipper,” She began before her twin interrupted her.

“That was strange,” Dipper said and yeah now it was her turn to groan. “Dipper no!” She practically yelled because they literally just got here she didn’t need her brother to fly into conspiracy theory mode.

“What Mabel? You saw that! We still don’t even know what Great Uncle Ford does, don’t you find that suspicious?” Dipper asked and she just groaned to herself again as you brother continued talking.

“And every time we’ve even come close to asking about his job he’s changed the subject and tried to avoid the topic!” she sighed to herself. 

“Dipper, he probably thinks we’ll be board if he went on about his job and yeah he didn’t want to miss a lot of work but given the circumstances don’t you think his first priority is making sure we’re settled over his job? I mean they should be.” She reasoned with her twin.

Dipper sighed, “I guess,” he conceded but she could tell he was still thinking about it and wasn’t going to drop it anytime soon.

“Come on Dipper lets unpack already! Hey that picture of a ship is pretty cool!” She said trying to take his mind of any mysteries her brother thought were around and pointed to the picture above his bed.

“Yeah I guess it does look nice,” Dipper noted and phew looks like she got his mind of it for now.

They’d find out what Grunkle Ford does soon enough but right now she was more concerned with starting their lives in Gravity Falls.


	2. Caught Between A Friend and A Rival

She was guessing Grunkle Ford might not actually eat much, when she woke up her brother was still sleeping in his bed and she had decided to get herself something to eat. However when she went to the kitchen she found absolutely nothing resembling food.

Zilch, zero, zippo, nil, nada and null. The fridge was had a few weird vials which had labels like ‘specimen 8’ and what she thinks might be ink but Grunkle Ford’s kitchen was weirdly bare. She sighed and closed the fridge as she heard Grunkle Ford entering the room.

“Mabel, what are you doing up so late?” Grunkle Ford asked in confusion with a bit of concern and while it was cute that he was trying to be a responsible guardian there was something wrong in his question.

“It’s 8:30 in the morning, I didn’t sleep in that much.” Mabel said and Grunkle Ford looked shocked by that statement. “Oh is it morning already?” He said in surprise and yeah she’s had this conversation with Dipper before.

“Um Grunkle Ford did you sleep at all last night?” she asked and he looked a bit embarrassed, “well I wanted to catch up on the work I missed and I was sorting out the house a bit and I guess I loss track of time,” He tried to explain and Mabel could feel herself rolling her eyes.

“Don’t worry Dipper’s the same, he’s the night blogger type.” Mabel reassured him and elaborated when she saw a confused look pass her Grunkle’s face.

“Dipper’s the type who will stay up until sunrise and then sleep in the rest of the day, he gets sleep deprived all time,” she said with her tone being a mix of exasperation and fondness before turning back to the fridge.

“But geez you don’t sleep and by the looks of your kitchen supplies you barley eat, how have you survived this long?” she said half jokingly.

“I’ve survived this long because of my intellect,” Grunkle Ford said solemnly and that took her off guard for a bit and she immediately turned to face her Grunkle and gave him a confused look. Grunkle Ford seemed to realize he had made a blunder of some sort.

“Ah, what I mean to say is that with a keen mind you can take what life has to throw at you.” Grunkle Ford said trying to explain his statement.

It was weird, the way he had answered her question it was almost like he’d been asked it before. Though definitely in a different context. 

Bluh, she’d leave the mysteries for after her brother woke up, she decided to let her Grunkle off the hook for this weirdness for now. She’s sure he’ll tell her what the deal with all of that is eventually.

She gave her Grunkle Ford a small nod and she could see him relax a little bit before turning back towards the fridge.

“Yeah that makes sense I guess but it’s not healthy not to eat are you gonna be ok Grunkle Ford?” She asked with some slight concern.

“Oh I’ll be perfectly fine, I know the kitchen may look a bit bare right now but that was due to me running low on supplies before I left to pick you and your brother up.” Grunkle Ford explained putting a box on the kitchen counter before taking strange jars out of the cupboards.

“Miss Corduroy does brings supplies and ready made meals for me during the beginning of the week and sometimes I go out to eat, there is an excellent dinner that does wonderful coffee”. Grunkle Ford continued and yeah she had already guessed that Grunkle Ford was a big coffee drinker, she’d seen a coffee machine in at least three different rooms already.

“Ok but um, what is all this weird stuff in your fridge?” She asked and Grunkle Ford rushed to the fridge “oh don’t touch those, they are some supplies I use for my research!” Grunkle Ford said worriedly.

Mabel took a step back as he started taking vials out of the fridge and butting them into the box he brought.

“I didn’t touch any of them,” she said because she really didn’t she hadn’t really had a chance to and she didn’t want to get into trouble for something she didn’t do. Grunkle Ford turned to her and his expression softened.

“Oh I’m not upset with you Mabel, I was just worried. As I said I use these for my research and work and some could be harmful to you and your brother if your not careful. Most of them need to be kept in cool and dry places so the kitchen is a perfect place to store them.” Grunkle Ford explained.

“Aren’t you worried about having them near the food?” She asked and Grunkle Ford nodded at her question.

“That would be a reasonable thing to worry about but since I am familiar with everything here there is nothing for me to worry about however since you and Dipper are not I’ve been moving everything out of the kitchen and into my lab.” Grunkle Ford said and oh he got her attention.

“Wait you have a lab? Oh Dipper would love that! Where is it? Can we see?” She said excitedly. 

Grunkle Ford coughed in embarrassment before with a slight blush on his face before answering, “while scientific interest and curiosity is to be encouraged I’m afraid that you can not go into my laboratory, it is in the basement but it might be too dangerous for you and your brother.”

“Boo!” She said in protest because they were totally responsible! Kinda, mostly. They’d be fine!

“Perhaps maybe when the two of you are a bit older and have learnt some safety precautions?” Grunkle Ford suggested though he had that grownup look where they say something might happen but they weren’t intending for it to actually happen.

She rolled her eyes; they were going to see his lab no matter what. It’s destiny she can tell.

“Hey Grunkle Ford, is there a grocery store near here?” She asked changing the topic, Grunkle Ford looked surprised for a moment before answering her.

“Yes there is one in town that luckily is within walking distance which makes things easier on Miss Corduroy and myself when I need to restock on coffee. Why?” He asked and ok she was starting to make a plan.

“Well since your clearing out the kitchen, why don’t I go out and buy some groceries?” She suggested with a smile on her face.

Grunkle Ford looked unsure though, “While that could be a good idea, you don’t know the town very well and I would rather you and I went together.” He said uncertainly.

“Yeah but you have to clear everything here away, plus this is the perfect opportunity for me to learn how to get around the town.” She insisted and Grunkle Ford looked thoughtful.

Looks like she nearly convinced him, just a little more. “It’s a good opportunity to get some food and Dipper and I really don’t want to distract you from your work what ever that is because we know it’s important to you, what ever it is” Grunkle Ford shifted in place uncomfortably as she said that.

“So how about we make a deal, you tell me how to get their and I promise I’ll go straight to the store and back,” she suggested as she finished her closing argument.

Grunkle Ford looked unsure but sighed, “Very well Mabel, just let me draw you a map and call me if anything strange happens.” Grunkle Ford relented.

“Yes!” She yelled punching the air in victory.

“Would you like to wait for your brother so the two of you can go together?” Grunkle Ford asked taking out some pen and paper. She shook her head in response before properly answering him.

“Nah, Dipper can actually sleep in pretty late if I’m not around to wake him up but I’m going to leave him to sleep for a few more hours. He had a bit of trouble getting to sleep last night.” Mabel explained.

Grunkle Ford gave a slight frown, “That’s unfortunate, has he been having nightmares?” Grunkle Ford asked with concern.

Oh, oh yeah Grunkle Ford was probably worried about things like that after all the twins parents did die, anyone would have nightmare due to that when you think about it, she and Dipper had actually had a few the first couple of nights.

Normal things you’d expect like watching your parents trapped in a house, being trapped in the in a fire herself. Dipper had had similar dreams. She knew because they always told each other; it helped having some one to talk to and cry to.

But after the nightmares she’d always just meow herself back to sleep and besides not all dreams made sense, the night Grunkle Ford came they both had a weird dream that seemed to be similar.

She’s positive it’s twin telepathy! 

Neither of them could remember much really of what happened in their dreams that night except Dipper dreamt that eyes were watching him and she dreamt of a triangle in a top hat having tea in front of her.

Both were odd and both dreams had left the twins with a feeling of unease and a sense of dread but ironically nightmares had nothing to do with why Dipper couldn’t sleep last night.

“No you don’t need to worry about nightmares Grunkle Ford, it’s just hard sleeping in new places sometimes for some people you know?” She lied, in reality Dipper had been up late trying to figure out what Grunkle Ford did but Grunkle Ford didn’t need to know that.

Grunkle Ford looked a little relieved but still looked thoughtful and looked at Mabel with an element of seriousness “Things should be ok now that the two of you have started living here, however it is of the upmost importance that you and your brother tell me if you have trouble sleeping due to disturbing dreams.” Grunkle Ford informed her.

Wow he seemed really serious about this, and also determined about something else?

She guesses he really was worried about the two of them, so she gave him a serious nod in return. “Got it,” she said strongly and with that Grunkle Ford seemed to relax and began to finish off the map he was drawing.

Once he was done he handed her the map and wow. Wow this was really detailed. He, he drew this right in front of her! Whaaaaaaaat? This was amazing.

“This map is really cool!” She said because it was, it really was.

Grunkle Ford chuckled to himself, “Oh thank you, and it’s nothing really.” He said as he opened a jar.

“Are you kidding this is extremely detailed I can’t believe you could put this much in without looking at anything else for reference.” She said in amazement.

“Oh thank you, well I have mapped out Gravity Falls before so something small like this is nothing really,” He said handing her some money.

Now Dipper would have probably been curious as to why he was mapping out the town and would probably have been questioning Grunkle Ford about that but she had a more important question to ask.

“Can you teach me how to do this?” She asked because while she loved her art style she could always improve and anyway if she could make maps even close to this that would be so cool!

Grunkle Ford looked a bit shocked at her question though, “You want to learn how to draw maps?” He said in surprise.

“Well sure I love artsy things!” She says putting on her sweater and the money he gave her in her skirt pocket.

Grunkle Ford smiled, “I’d be happy to help in any way I can, I do have an art degree,” He told her.

“Really? That’s so cool! I thought you’d be one of those guys with a couple of PhDs!” She said excitedly, she couldn’t believe she might have found another artistic soul.

“Oh I have 12 PhDs but I believe all subjects hold importance,” Grunkle Ford said and wow, just wow. She might think Grunkle Ford was kidding about having all those PhDs but he didn’t seem like he was joking, she knew he was smart but wow. She was caught between feeling amazed at her Grunkle and touched that he appreciated artistic subjects when most people only cared about things like science and math.

This just confirmed what she knew all along, her family was amazing.

“Wow wait till Dipper hears that! He’ll be so excited!” Because he would be Dipper and Grunkle Ford had a lot of similarities and she had a feeling that Dipper was going to end up looking up to Grunkle Ford.

“I’m surprised you’re still single ‘Mr. Can do just about anything,’” She said winking at him. Grunkle Ford chuckled and shook his head in response.

“Oh I’ve never been interested in romance, there was always too much to do.” Grunkle Ford said and what? 

“Boo!” She said voicing her displeasure not that she really minded everyone had the right to be themselves when it came to romance. Even if that meant no romance at all.

“And besides I can’t do everything, there are some things that even I’ve always had trouble with.” Grunkle Ford continued.

“Oh really like what?” she asked curiously and Grunkle Ford crouched down so they were face to face and whispered to her in a serious voice “I’ve never been good with poetry” which caused her to burst into laughter.

Grunkle Ford smiled at her and she was really glad that they were able to get along, yeah it’s true they haven’t known each other that long considering they were going to be living together, like a week really but she’d say they were off to a good start.

“Now please head strait to the store and back, I’ve given you some money for some basic things but I’ll trust you to not spend it all on anything unhealthy.” Grunkle Ford told her. Oh Grunkle Ford that was exactly what she wanted to do how was she supposed to resist the temptation of sugar?

Well she was mostly going to buy basic groceries anyway, she’d stock up on sugar after they had some actual food in this place.

“Don’t worry Grunkle Ford I’ve got this!” She said confidently as she headed towards the door, before she left she turned back to him to ask him a question.

“Oh by the way Grunkle Ford can you cook?” she asked because she was starting to suspect from how he kept the kitchen and the fact that before they came to Gravity Falls they had gone out to eat for every meal so she had no evidence that Grunkle Ford could actually cook a proper meal for himself.

Grunkle Ford looked a bit embarrassed as her replied “Ah no I’m afraid not, cooking falls into the same camp as poetry funnily enough” well that was the confirmation she needed.

She opened the door as she smiled at her Grunkle, “Ok then, well don’t worry Grunkle Ford I’ll be sure to cook you something that can knock your socks off!” she said confidently and immediately headed out.

It didn’t take her long to get what she needed; everyone she spoke to at the store seemed nice. A lot seemed curious about her asking her where she was from, how long she was staying in Gravity Falls that sort of thing.

She supposed that with Gravity Falls being such a small town it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and they probably weren’t used to new faces.

But everyone she’d encountered no matter how curious seemed nice; yep she and Dipper were going to fit in perfectly.

She got some pretty basic stuff, cereal and syrup of course. What’s the point of living if she couldn’t have her favorite food? But she also got some basic stuff for any kitchen; juice, vegetables etc.

She’d have loved to get some snacks and sugary stuff but since it’s apparent Grunkle Ford isn’t used to using the kitchen for making food and the last time Dipper tried to cook something he set a kitchen counter on fire she was pretty much the only person in that shack that was now her home who could cook and darn it her family was going to eat decent meals!

Though she did pick up the last couple of cans of Pitt Cola because she needed her sugar intake somehow and also a box of “Chipackerz, the chip flavored crackers!”

They taste just like chips! 

She was heading back home when she heard an irritated voice coming from the parking lot of the grocery store.

“What do you mean they’re all out of Pitt Cola?” the irritated voice asked and a polite response from a second voice answered the question.

“I’m sorry Miss Pacifica but it seems that their delivery is coming in later today and someone else bought the last of the cans.” The second, polite voice said as she started walking in the direction of the voices to see what all of the commotion was about.

What she saw was an impossibly beautiful girl with golden hair standing next to a fancy car, wearing a fancy school uniform and talking to a fancy looking man.

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do now? I really needed that sugar to get through that god awful Latin class!” the girl said in frustration.

“Hey!” she called as she walked over to the super model looking girl.

The girl looked in her direction and gave her a look as if she were summing up her worth.

“Can I help you?” the girl said to her in a dismissive tone.

She didn’t let that shake her though as she started rummaging through her bag of groceries.

“Actually I think I can help you! Were you talking about Pitt Cola?” she asked causing the girl to raise her eyebrows.

The girl crossed her arms and looked if she was about to go into a rant.

“First of all who gave you the right to listen in on my conversations? Secondly I seriously doubt you could ever help me! Thirdly-“ the girls rant was cut off by when she took a Pitt Cola out of her bag of groceries and held it in front of her.

“Are you making fun of me?” The girl asked and she shook her head in response because that was definitely not what she was doing.

“What? No I’m saying for you to take the Cola,” she said shocking the other girl.

“Why? What do you want for it?” the girl said and she nearly laughed because what was with this girl?

“I don’t want anything I’m giving it to you to be nice,” she said and when she saw a confused face on the other girl she decided she needed to give a more in depth explanation.

“Look I picked up the last three cans of Pitt Cola and I don’t need all of them so you can have one,” she explained still holding the can.

The other girl looked unsure though, “I'm not supposed to take handouts.” The girl said uncertainly causing her to laugh. What the heck?

“Handouts? It's called sharing!” she said and a look of utter confusion passed over the other girls face.

“You do know what sharing is, right?” She asked in disbelief. 

“Sha-shaawing?” The other girl said as if the word was from another language.

“Just take it.” She said sighing and putting the can in the other girl’s hand. “I’m Mabel by the way” she introduced herself now that the can had safely been given to its new owner.

“That sounds like an old lady’s name.” The girl muttered staring at the can in her hand as if she was still trying to comprehend what just happened.

“I’ll take that as a compliment” she said happily and then looked at the other girl expectantly.

“What?” The other girl said in confusion with a bit of annoyance when she noticed her waiting for something.

“Well aren’t you going to tell me your name?” she asked curiously causing the other girl to raise her eyebrows.

“Your seriously telling me you don’t know who I am?” the girl asked causing her to shrug.

“I’m new in town, I don’t know who any one is yet” she explained causing the girl to roll her eyes.

“Pacifica, Pacifica Northwest” the girl said with confidence as if she was announcing something important.

She gave Pacifica a big smile, “nice to meet you Pacifica! I’m Mabel Pines!” she said with excitement, maybe just maybe she made a new friend today.

“Miss Pacifica, we really must get you back to class.” The fancy man butted into their conversation opening one of the doors to the fancy car.

“Hey if you ever need to find me I’m living at the shack at 618 Gopher Road,” she said turning to leave herself, she’d love to talk with Pacifica more but hey if Pacifica needed to go that was fine besides she wanted to get back to the shack before Dipper woke up anyway.

“The shack on Gopher Road isn’t that?” what ever Pacifica was muttering she didn’t hear the rest of it, she was already excitedly running back to the shack that was now her home.

The residents of Gravity Falls she had encountered so far seemed nice enough and she just met a very pretty one.

\---

He woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs.

He’d been up all night thinking. He’d been thinking about a lot of things, about his parents, about how he and Mabel had left everything they’d known behind about the mystery surrounding his Great Uncle Ford.

He remembers back when he and Mabel were little kids he once heard a rumor that his family were cursed. Nearly thirty years ago members of the Pines family started to die in mysterious circumstances and when his mother married into the Pines name people from her side of the family began to die too.

He remembers having to go to a lot of funerals growing up, so the atmosphere of mourning isn’t anything knew to him or his sister, he sometimes wonders if that is the reason why his sister was so obsessed with colorful things and constantly wanting everyone to be happy and maybe it was the rumors about his family being cursed that had him so interested in conspiracies and the paranormal.

Now though the only people he had to call family, the only people he was related to in any way was his twin and his Great Uncle.

It wasn’t like he had any problems with him; from the conversations he had had with him they were very similar. In fact Great Uncle Ford was downright incredible any one could see he was a genius.

But he’d only known him for like what? A week or so?

Apparently a while back Great Uncle Ford had closed himself off from his family, cutting ties with most of them for no discernible reason but now he was part of his and Mabel’s life because he was all they had.

And they knew nothing about him!

With thoughts like these, thoughts of grief and thoughts of conspiracy. It was no wonder he found himself lying awake for who knows how long.

He thinks maybe he saw some sunlight before passing out?

He didn’t really remember when he fell asleep but he was thankful that he didn’t dream; ever since the night the fire happened, the night his parents died he had been having weird dreams. Mabel had some too, they talked to each other about them but it was nice to have a break from nightmares.

Despite the seriousness of his thoughts before bed, he had the most peaceful sleep he’s had in a long time. He slept like a log.

He would have probably have slept more if the smell of food hadn’t roused him from unconsciousness. He’ll admit there was an internal debate on whether to stay in bed and see if he could drift back into unconsciousness or go look for the source of the smell and see if he could get some food.

It was a long and hard fought debate but eventually the need for food won out.

He sleepily made his way down stairs and found himself at the kitchen where his sister was cooking.

Mabel was humming to herself until she noticed his presence and turned around and gave him a smile.

“Oh hey Dipper I thought the smell of food would get you up!” she greeted him cheerfully as she moved to get some plates.

“Good morning Mabel” he said stifling a yawn.

“Barely it’s like nearly 11 o’clock Dipper,” Mabel said and he rolled his eyes, “time is relative” he told her and this time it was her turn to role her eyes.

He took a seat at the table as Mabel put a plate in front of him; some bacon, crunchy just the way he liked it and two sunny side up eggs arranged to look like a smiley face with the eggs as eyes and the bacon as a smile.

“Wakey, wakey eggs and bakey” Mabel said it with a smile causing him to raise his eyebrow.

“Did you make eggs and bacon for breakfast just so you could use that line?” he asked her and she smiled and winked at him showing him that that is exactly it.

“Oh who can really say for sure?” his twin said before continuing “any way you’ve barley made it in time for this to count as breakfast you were close to this entering brunch territory” she complained.

“Yeah I know I was just having some trouble getting to sleep last night. I was thinking about stuff” he replied causing his twin to groan.

“Dipper please tell me your not going to over think things like you usually do.” Mabel said, “What I don’t over think things!” he protested and he saw Mabel roll her eyes.

“You kind of do, not even kind of you absolutely do!” his twin said and now it was his turn to groan, maybe he did over complicate things in his head sometimes. On rare occasions. Occasionally. But he always had a good reason!

His sister sighed before speaking again, “whatever bro, bro just eat your food before it gets cold.” She told him and yeah that was probably a good idea especially since she had gone to all the trouble of making it.

He’d like to make her something to eat in return but anything he cooked would probably turn out not safe for human consumption.

“Would you like some syrup?” Mabel asked him as he was about to start eating, “Mabel you don’t need to put syrup on every breakfast food.” He replied.

“Yes you do! Otherwise what’s even the point?” his twin protested causing him to roll his eyes, syrup on cereal was her favorite food but she was also the type to put syrup on her eggs or pretty much anything else.

“Oh by the way I got two different kinds of syrup while I was getting groceries so we can have syrup races!” his sister said excitedly.

He let out a small laugh, “Seriously? Like when we were kids?” he asked causing his twin to nod. He remembered they used to try and see which syrup would fall into their mouth the fastest. Mabel usually won those though.

“So you got groceries?” he asked and Mabel nodded again.

“The joys of getting up early Dipper you get stuff done!” Mabel said, “Morning people aren’t natural” he added in causing Mabel to roll her eyes.

“So did Great Uncle Ford take you to get groceries?” he asked and to his surprise she shook her head.

“No he had things to do but he drew this really cool map and I went to the grocery store and back!” she told him excitedly.

“Wait what things?” he asked as Great Uncle Ford walked into the room carrying a plate.

“Mabel my dear that has to be the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time” he said putting his plate in the sink.

“Oh stop” Mabel said giving him a nudge on the arm before loudly whispering, “I’m joking keep going!” causing him to roll his eyes and Great Uncle Ford to let out a small laugh.

“Oh by the way Grunkle Ford I made you some more coffee” she said pouring him a cup and Great Uncle Ford eagerly took it.

“Thank you Mabel this is exactly what I needed.” He said taking a sip.

“You know if you want more energy I can always try making Mabel juice,” Mabel offered and oh god not that.

“Mabel juice?” Great Uncle Ford asked curiously as Mabel offered him an explanation.

“It’s a sort of energy drink I made to give someone a little pick me up.” Mabel explained “It’s like if coffee and nightmares had a baby!” he added causing Mabel to roll her eyes and glare at him. Yeah, he’s sorry Mabel but he has warn his Great Uncle of that glittery, sugary drink.

“He’s exaggerating, anyway Grunkle Ford I don’t think it’s healthy for you to drink so much coffee.” His sister told his Great Uncle in concern and wow really? Mabel juice was definitely not much healthier; it has glitter and plastic dinosaurs in it for crying out loud!

“Oh I’m perfectly fine Mabel, I need to stay awake if I want to stay on track with my research”. Great Uncle Ford told his sister and he guesses if Great Uncle Ford really wanted to stay awake Mabel juice might actually be a good idea because that stuff could wake you out of a coma.

You’d be awake but at what cost though?

His twin was giving the older man a look and it looked like she was going to disagree with their Great Uncle’s statement before he decided to change the topic to something more important before his sister could speak.

“So what are you researching Great Uncle Ford?” He cut in curiously and watched as Great Uncle Ford avoided eye contact.

“Ah well it’s a bit complicated and I don’t want to bore you” Great Uncle Ford said hurriedly, he narrowed his eyes at the man as Mabel sat down across from him.

“Well I’m pretty interested in a lot of things and I’m sure I’ll be able to understand it- ow!” he was saying when Mabel suddenly kicked him under the table.

He glared at his sister because what the heck was that for? Mabel spoke up before he had a chance to speak again.

“Don’t worry Grunkle Ford you can tell us all about it later, you have some stuff you said you needed to do right?” Mabel asked, Great Uncle Ford looked relieved before answering her.

“Ah that’s quite right, I want to tidy up some things from work that I left lying around the house but afterwards I’ll spend the day with the two of you.” Great Uncle Ford said as he started to make his way out of the room.

“Right! See you at lunch Grunkle Ford!” Mabel called waving goodbye to their Great Uncle as he left the room.

Once the older man was out of sight and probably earshot his sister turned to glare at him. “Dipper what the heck was that for?” Mabel asked angrily.

“I should be the one asking you that! Why’d you kick me?” he said replying to her question with his own.

Mabel sighed as she got up, “Did you just sit down just to kick me?” he asked partly to himself and partly to his sister.

“Look Dipper you of all people should know that people can get embarrassed, you constantly hounding Grunkle Ford and asking what he does is just making him nervous to tell us” Mabel said.

“And why would he be nervous to tell us Mabel? If it’s no big deal why didn’t he just come out and say it?” he said as his sister shook her head at him.

“Because Dipper he probably didn’t want us to think he was uncool or something, look he’s going to tell us eventually but he probably doesn’t think we’d be all that interested in it and that’s probably what he’s worried about.” Mabel rationalized and that wasn’t fair he was supposed to be the rational, reasonable one out of the two of them.

“Well why does he need to ‘tidy’ up the house then?” he asked and Mabel almost laughed at him.

“He’s nearly as messy as you Dipper! I know it was late but you had to have seen all the paper work lying around last night.” Mabel explained; and yeah it’s true he did see piles of paper in various rooms he passed when they had arrived.

“Since it’s just him here he’s left stuff to do with his work pretty much wherever but since we’ve moved in he’s moving a bunch of stuff to his office and other places which makes sense it would be bad if we moved anything important, apparently he cleared a bunch of stuff up before coming to get us and is finishing off everything today” Mabel explained and ok he guesses that makes sense. 

No matter what your job is it would be bad if you lost some paper work for it.

“Still if everything was on a computer file there wouldn’t be a mess of papers but I guess Grunkle Ford is too old for computers right?” Mabel said half jokingly.

“He’s in his sixties he’s not that old Mabel!” he said even though he was laughing at his sister’s joke.

“Any way, I think I’ve earned some TV time and I’m curious as to what Gravity Falls local TV is like. By the way I cooked so you can take care of clean up love you bro, bro! I'm gonna go before you process this sentence okay BYEE!” Mabel said quickly as she turned to leave.

“Mabel what the heck!” He said half getting up as his sister bolted out the room. With a sigh he sat back down, same old Mabel he guesses. 

Maybe Mabel was right maybe he was trying to overcomplicate things to take his mind off of other stuff and he guesses he can be kind of paranoid sometimes maybe Great Uncle Ford really did just have a pretty average job that he was embarrassed to show them because he didn’t think they’d be interested in. He supposes he can give everything a rest for now. 

He didn’t take long to finish his breakfast and do the dishes despite what Mabel said she had done most of the clean up herself before he had come down so there was really just his own plates and the stuff Great Uncle Ford had put in the sink earlier.

When he was done he went into the living room to watch TV with Mabel, they have both come to the conclusion that the Gravity Falls television stations were bad but the type of bad that rolls around to almost being enjoyable.

When lunchtime started rolling around Mabel got up to go make some sandwiches for everyone while he just sort of stayed on the couch and continued watching TV.

It was just then that the door knocked, “Dipper could you get that?” his sister called from the kitchen as he made his way off the couch.

“Yeah don’t worry!” He called from the door before opening it. When he opened the door he saw a girl in a fancy school uniform that he thinks he’s seen somewhere before, with long blonde hair who looked at him in surprise and confusion when he opened the door.

“Did you cut your hair?” she asked after a moment of silence causing him to be a little confused “ah no?” was his reply and the girl was looking at him well the better word would be examining him.

After a moment she snapped her fingers and a tall man in a suit brought her a can of Pitt Cola, which had a strip of paper, wrapped around it in a bow.

“Here” she said holding the can out for him to take and now that it was right in front of his face he could see that the can was empty.

“Why would I want your garbage?” he asked causing the girl to look annoyed and it looked like she was about to yell at him when Mabel came running to the door.

“Dipper who is it?” she asked as she went to stand next to him and saw the girl who looked confused again. Mabel on the other hand had a look of recognition and excitement on her face.

“Oh my gosh! Hey Pacifica!” his twin said in excitement.

“You know her?” “There’s two of you?” he and the girl, Pacifica he guesses asked at the same time and you know what, he didn’t think he liked this girl.

“Yes to both questions, kinda” Mabel replied and then had a thoughtful look “which should I answer first I wonder” Mabel muttered to herself but loud enough for them to hear.

“You better answer mine first since I’m wasting my lunch break coming over here!” Pacifica said and wow “It’s not like we asked you to come over here especially on your oh so precious lunch break.” He said causing Pacifica to glare at him.

“This is Dipper, he’s my twin brother!” Mabel said cutting into the looks he and Pacifica were giving each other and introducing him which caused Pacifica to look directly at Mabel in shock.

“He’s a guy!?” Pacifica said in shock causing Mabel to burst out laughing. “Oh come on!” he said and yeah this wasn’t the first time something like this happened but still!

“Well that’s been a subject of debate” Mabel said between laughing “Mabel!” he said in an irritated voice because he was so done with this conversation.

“I’m joking! You know I love you bro!” Mabel said giving him a playful shove that nearly caused him to fall down.

It was then that Mabel saw the empty can that Pacifica was holding, “Is that the Pitt Cola I gave you this morning?” Mabel asked taking the can as Pacifica handed it to her.

“Yeah, thanks for that” Pacifica said as she turned to leave.

“Wait did you really come over here just to give us your trash?” he yelled after her, and Pacifica turned and glared at him and what was she hoping to make a dramatic exit or something?

“No, I just came to check if Mabel was really living here.” Pacifica said coldly. “And why would you care?” he asked harshly and maybe he was being overly hostile to this girl but she definitely deserved it.

“My family funds some of the old mans work, I needed to check that nothing was getting in the way of it” Pacifica said off handily and wait what?

“You fund our Great Uncle’s work?” he asked quietly but Pacifica seemed to have heard.

“A bit, but little word of the wise Dipper” she said his name mockingly, “The Northwest’s have funded everything at some point or another” she said as she got into the back of an overly expensive car.

And oh great he’d been so distracted by the mention of that family’s name that he let her make a dramatic exit.

“Dipper oh my gosh look!” Mabel said cutting into his thoughts excitedly to reveal the strip of paper that last time he saw it had been wrapped around the empty can has something written on it.

“candidChampion” he read out from the paper as Mabel was practically jumping up and down in excitement. “Do you realize what this means Dipper?” she excitedly said practically shaking him.

“I have a feeling your going to tell me,” he said pushing his sister off of him.

“She gave me her chum handle Dipper! She’s asking me to message her!” Mabel said practically screaming and oh boy he knew that Mabel liked making friends but did her first friend in this new town have to be that girl. With luck Mabel you realize this Pacifica girl was awful and they’d never have to deal with her again.

“Ah who was at the door?” Great Uncle Ford said coming up to stand up behind them.

“Grunkle Ford you’ll never believe what just happened!” Mabel said excitedly as she started showing their Great Uncle the strip of paper.

He stared out at where the car Pacifica had been in had driven off, well there was one conclusion he could draw from all this.

Pacifica was the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've finally got the second chapter of this up, thank you to everyone who has been reading so far. I hoped you enjoyed it. Anyway in Journal 3 Dipper described Mabel as "me with girl hair and about 1,000 pounds of sugar injected into my blood stream" and in Headhunters Manly Dan mistook Dipper for a girl so I like to head canon that Dipper can be mistaken for a girl fairly easily.


	3. Caught Between Exposition and Preparation

They were eating the sandwiches Mabel had made while his sister was excitedly planning what they were all going to do for the rest of the day. Their Great Uncle was listening to Mabel talk, occasionally adding something to the conversation here and there. Dipper himself wasn’t really listening to them though he thinking about starting a different topic altogether.

He knows that he told Mabel that he wouldn’t keep bothering Great Uncle Ford about his job but with the newest piece of information that he had gotten, it seemed like he had the perfect opportunity to go back to that particular topic.

Mabel might be mad or annoyed at him but this was kind of important, he put his sandwich down and cleared his throat. His sister turned towards him at the sound of the noise.

“You ok Dipper?” Mabel asked before picking up a carton of juice that was on the table. “Do you need something to drink?” Mabel asked another question before he could respond to the first one shaking the carton of juice slightly.

“No I’m ok Mabel, but I do actually have a question for Great Uncle Ford” he said causing his sister to frown at him, he nearly backed down but the question slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. Sorry Mabel.

“So do the Northwest’s really fund some of your work?” he asked, causing a slight look of surprise on the older man’s face before he answered.

“Ah well yes, in a sense I suppose there is some truth to that. Mabel told me the two of you happened to meet the youngest Northwest correct?” he said, causing both Dipper and Mabel to nod and he had to keep from groaning at remembering meeting the youngest Northwest.

“Pacifica? Yeah she said her family funded like everything,” Mabel said looking at him and their Great Uncle questioningly, Dipper found himself nodding because from what he had heard of the Northwest’s that sounded pretty close to the truth.

“I’m not really all that into things like business but I have heard about the Northwest’s on the news, they’re supposed to be a really influential family so I’m a little surprised that we met one especially in such a small town.” He said causing Great Uncle Ford to nod.

“Well you see in around the 1840’s a man known as Nathaniel Northwest founded the town of Gravity Falls and as such his descendants have their roots fairly planted into this town.” Great Uncle Ford explained; Dipper nodded while his twin looked at their Great Uncle curiously.

“Really? I guess that makes sense why Pacifica was surprised I didn’t know about her.” Mabel said quietly and he watched as she started taking out her phone.

“Ah yes, the Northwest’s have a great deal of influence throughout the world owning everything from Northwest Realty to Northwest mud flaps to Northwest weather vanes; though the weather vanes often seem to unfairly favor the directions north and west” Great Uncle Ford stated causing Mabel to giggle a bit at his last comment.

“Yeah and they also started that prestigious school, Northwest Academy right? And before you ask Mabel I doubt we’ll be going there” he said causing his twin to nod to his surprise as he’d been expecting her to complain when he told her that.

“Yeah I know, Grunkle Ford was telling me that we’ve been enrolled in Gravity Falls high when I was making breakfast” Mabel explained causing him some more surprise, he hadn’t expected that they’d be enrolled in a new high school so quickly.

Great Uncle Ford seemed to notice this and added on to Mabel’s statement “yes, I know there are less than a few months before summer vacation starts but education is still important and so I felt that it would be imperative to have you and your sister enrolled in school as soon as possible. Of course you both have a little time before you start to get everything you need and adjust to being in a new town.” He explained and Dipper nodded because that seemed like a reasonable enough explanation.

He saw his sister roll her eyes “yeah so any way what does that Academy place have to do with anything” Mabel asked him and oh yeah he guesses he was the one that brought it up.

“It’s not really all that important except it’s this really prestigious Academy, I thought I recognized the uniform Pacifica was wearing. From what I’ve heard about it, it’s an Academy for the incredibly wealthy and you have to be completely loaded to even think of getting in or are like crazy talented to get some kind of scholarship or whatever. Of course the Northwest’s founded the place hence the name.” He explained causing his twin to nod, he had heard about the school in passing it was kind of hard not to since it was supposed to be one of the best schools in the country.

He’d heard it was somewhere in Oregon but so close to Gravity Falls who knew? Though it’s not surprising that Pacifica was a student there considering her family founded the damn place.

“According to this Pacifica’s nationally ranked at golf, won a bunch of beauty pageants and has even appeared prominently in the fashion industry” Mabel said reading from her phone, oh so that’s why his sister had taken her phone out so she look Pacifica up.

“You know she probably just bought her way into those right?” he said causing Mabel to groan. “What I’m just being realistic here Mabel” he said shrugging as his sister rolled her eyes at him and put her phone away.

“So any way what did you mean when you said the Northwest’s funded your work ‘in a sense’,’” he asked getting back to the reason he started this conversation in the first place.

Great Uncle Ford nodded as if he was thinking while talking “Ah yes, well I suppose it would be more accurate to state that they funded the Corduroys’” Great Uncle Ford said he nodded because the older man had mentioned something about working with someone called Corduroy.

“You mean like the Miss Corduroy you mentioned?” Mabel asked and oh that’s where Great Uncle Ford had mentioned the name before.

“That is correct Mabel; the Corduroy’s are a family of lumber jacks who have been here since the towns founding under the direct employment of the Northwest’s. The Corduroy’s even built this house. Traditionally the Northwest’s supplied them with funding and equipment.” He explained spiking Dipper’s interest.

“Traditionally do you mean they don’t any more or something?” He asked causing his Great Uncle to shake his head.

“Not quite, before I came to this town the Corduroy’s were to summaries completely dependent on the Northwest’s to be able to do what they do however after I moved here over nearly forty years ago I have been designing and creating equipment for the Corduroy’s to use and have been effectively helping them run things” Great Uncle Ford explained.

Oh he guesses Mabel was right and Great Uncle Ford’s job was rather normal if he was simply the brains behind a lumberjack business.

“But wouldn’t they still be dependent on the Northwest’s for funding even with improved management?” He asked, his Great Uncle nodded and seemed to have a nostalgic look in his eyes.

“Well a lot of my education was funded by a ‘world renowned explorer-naturalist-treasure hunter-archeologist-scientist-adventurer-big game hunter-billionaire extraordinaire’ his words not mine” Great Uncle Ford said adding the last part when he noticed Dipper and his sister giving him a strange look.

“I viewed him as a mentor of sorts and spent a lot of time with him working under him as a kind of student or apprentice, he was a brilliant man who had inherited a large company from his family and also ran another business that is quite old and wealthy in it’s own right which he had started working for when he was around the same age as you two that he would eventually take over.” His Great Uncle Ford said his voice a mix of pride, respect, and fondness and a hint of sadness.

“When I came to Gravity Falls it was under that pretext of expanding that business so he funded a lot of my work, so in the present day a lot of the majority of funding that goes into my research and the Corduroy’s work is from what he left me, though the Northwest’s still fund a large share”. He explained just as Dipper interrupted with a question.

“What do you mean what he left you?” He asked curiously as Great Uncle Ford cleared his throat as he replied. “Ah yes, well I’m afraid he passed quite some time ago.”

“Oh Grunkle Ford!” Mabel said in concern though the older man simply held up one of his hands as if to show that he was ok. “It’s quite alright Mabel dear, it happens to us all.” He said quietly.

Yeah, they all knew that, and as if sensing where the twin’s thoughts were heading Great Uncle Ford continued speaking probably to get their minds off that particular topic.

“His company was taken over by a distant relative a bright young girl, I believe the Northwest’s do in fact have shares in that company, it’s quite well known for it’s baked goods while his business was taken over by his adopted children. Two incredibly remarkable and capable adults. In fact I believe it would be safe to say that I would trust those two with my life. We do keep in touch regularly, in fact they have a pair of children around your age so it might be a good idea to introduce you to them one day”. Great Uncle Ford said Dipper rolling his eyes at the prospect. 

“When he passed I did help out those two as much as I could but I was needed in Gravity Falls at the time so I’m afraid I didn’t have the chance to do everything I would have liked for them.” He said and Dipper and Mabel nodded.

Huh, he guesses maybe he really might have been making a conspiracy when there was none. It didn’t sound like Great Uncle Ford did any thing that sinister. 

“Well that was a lovely meal Mabel, Thanks Mabel” Dipper suddenly heard his twin say to herself. He saw that she had finished her sandwich while he had been listening to their Great Uncle’s story.

He’d actually completely forgotten about the meal with the way the conversation had been going and by the look on Great Uncle Ford’s face so had he.

“Ah yes Mabel is definitely right we don’t want to let our food go to waste now do we?” Great Uncle Ford said with some embarrassment while Dipper picked up his own sandwich.

It didn’t take long for them to finish their meal with Great Uncle Ford thanking Mabel as he got up, “Tell me when you two are ready to leave” the older man said as he left the room while Mabel got up herself.

“So am I doing the dishes again since you made the meal?” He asked jokingly getting up himself while Mabel shook her head.

“Nah, you did the washing up for breakfast so I’ll do it this time” Mabel told him, “Really?” he asked because he guesses that he could go watch some TV or something else.

Of course he never got to think of a ‘something else’ because Mabel immediately spoke. “Yep, I’ll do the dishes and you can dry” she stated. 

“Of course” he said with a little smile while looking for something to dry the dishes with while Mabel got to work.

It didn’t really take them that long and soon enough he was putting away the last plate, the plates in the shack looked kind of old but he guesses that since it was just their Great Uncle here for a while lots of plates weren’t needed let alone new plates.

“So you ready to go bro, bro?” his sister asked him causing him to shrug. “Oh yeah Great Uncle Ford said we were going to go somewhere but where are we going?” He asked causing his twin to role her eyes.

“Dipper weren’t you paying attention earlier we were talking about it!” she stated, “Yeah I wasn’t really listening to that conversation,” he admitted flatly because what else could he say really? This caused his twin to groan and cover her face with her hands.

“Ok well you know how most of our stuff got burnt up?” Mabel asked her voice trailing off a little towards the end of her sentence and he gave her a nod not really trusting himself to speak due to a sudden lump in his throat.

“Well since we need some stuff any way and we’ll be starting school soon Grunkle Ford is going to take us to get some things like clothes and school supplies and books and stuff and a couple of things to put in our room to make the place feel more like home.” Mabel explained causing him to nod because again yeah he guessed that made sense he and Mabel couldn’t keep wearing the same three outfits they had every day.

Well he guesses he could but Mabel would complain about it, they would need stuff for school plus he wouldn’t mind picking up a couple of books to read, maybe restart his collection of mystery novels since the last one was gone.

“Ok so where are we going?” he asked his twin and he saw her eyes shine with excitement.

“Dipper we are going to where romance lives and fashion styles die!”

They were going to the mall.

“Ok I kind of get the fashion style dying part but how is the mall where romance lives?” he asked when they got there because seriously he was thinking about the entire time they were getting here and it didn’t make sense to him.

And usually he was the one who understood his sister’s analogies.

He saw Mabel roll her eyes as she answered him, “Dipper do you know how many people I’ve flirted with at the mall? How many people have flirted with me? How many dates I’ve had at the mall? How many boyfriends I’ve met at the mall?” She started to ask before he cut her off.

“Ok, Ok I get it. Wow I shouldn’t have asked and I don’t really want to know the answers to those questions.” He said causing his sister to laugh.

“So what should we do first? Is there a craft store here? I should get some yarn? How many sweaters do you think I should make? Oh want to look at the food court? Wait we already had lunch” Mabel started speaking a mile a minute clearly excited.

“Mabel hang on one thing at a time,” He said trying to calm her down and nope too late she was already heading to one of the stores before stopping outside ‘edgy on purpose’.

“Hey Dipper think I should go Goth? New town new me right?” Mabel joked. “Absolutely not,” he shot down, he knew she was joking but Mabel right now wasn’t the best time for an image change.

Besides Mabel was pretty much perfect as she was. Not that he’s going to admit that out loud right now.

“But seriously bro what should we do first?” Mabel asked him as he though, “I’m not sure I probably should have made a list,” he said as his twin groaned.

“Ugh, I’m glad you didn’t we would have never gotten anything done if we followed one of your overcomplicated listy things” she said. “They aren’t overcomplicated Mabel they’re practical!” he defended quickly as his twin rolled her eyes.

“Maybe we should ask Grunkle Ford, I think he might have an idea,” Mabel suggested as they saw the older man catching up with them.

“Hey there Grunkle Ford, sorry if we left you behind I got a bit excited there” Mabel admitted once their Great Uncle was near them.

“That’s quite alright Mabel being in a new place can be exciting besides we’re getting close to the first place we should go to” Great Uncle Ford said taking out a pocket sized notebook.

“Oh you’ve got an agenda, where are we heading first?” he asked questioningly, he figured their Great Uncle probably had a better idea of what to do than they did at the moment.

“I believe first and foremost we should get you some supplies for school, of course I have plenty of notebooks and folders myself back at home but I felt you two might want something more new and your own.” Great Uncle Ford explained.

“Oh so we’re going to a stationary supply shop?” he asked as the older man nodded.

“Yes there is quite a good one here, and while we’re here we can get you and your sister some other things. While there are various shops throughout town I believe it would be best to do everything in one go at the same place” Great Uncle Ford elaborated causing Dipper to nod.

He supposed that made sense and besides he and Mabel will probably get to know the towns shops soon enough when they were more settled in; for now the mall seemed like a good place to start.

It didn’t take long for them to choose the stuff they needed, he had no idea how Mabel managed to find the most glitter-covered items in the store.

“Mabel your folder already has glitter on it, why are you buying glitter?” he asked in exasperation as his sister was looking through the four different colors of glitter that she had bought.

His twin looked up at him with her own expression of exasperation, “Dipper you can never have too much glitter the question is insulting,” she said simply. 

Crap she was glaring at him; he guesses it’s never a good idea to mess with Mabel and her glitter.

He held up his hands in a defensive gesture “ok, ok sorry if I insulted you glitter” he said, she glared at him for a few more seconds before she smiled.

“It’s ok Dipper, you can make it up to me later” she said and oh god what had he done?

“Alright children, now that that’s taken care of there are many clothing shops here where you two can choose some things you like” Great Uncle Ford said to them as they both nodded.

“Oh Grunkle Ford we’ll need to go to a craft store as well” Mabel spoke up, “Oh course if that’s what you want but can I ask why?” Great Uncle Ford questioned.

“Mabel likes to make her own sweaters,” he explained as his twin nodded enthusiastically “yep I made the one I’m wearing right now!” she added.

“That’s quite impressive Mabel, perhaps you can give me some help with fixing one of my old sweaters” the older man say as his sister jumped up in excitement.

“Oh my gosh yes! How do you feel about sequins?” his sister questioned excitedly, “Mabel people are staring” he said trying to calm her down.

With how excited they were acting it was almost hard to believe that they were morning; right now he and his sister had a plan they were going to live their life in Gravity Falls as best as they could, they had their Great Uncle and most importantly they had each other.

They were going to be ok.

\---

They had decided to go to a place called Greasy's Diner so that she didn’t have to cook dinner.

Not that she minded cooking was fun! Though she guesses that she is a little tiered after everything they did today.

“Well hi there, don’t think I’ve seen you two kids before” a waitress said coming to take their order. The waitress had long greying hair and blue eye shadow on a lazy eye; she was beautiful and Mabel decided she had to know.

“I’m Mabel this is my brother Dipper and we’re new in town and by the way I love your hair!” Mabel cheerfully introduced her and her brother while complementing the waitresses amazing hair causing the older women to laugh slightly.

“Thank you I cut it yesterday” the waitress said smiling at her, “oh who did it?” Mabel asked excitedly, “I cut it myself” was the simple reply she received causing her to gasp.

“You have a gift!” she said in an incredibly serious voice; the waitress laughed again and looked liked she was about to thank Mabel for her compliment when both Dipper and Grunkle Ford coughed catching their attention.

They were probably trying to move the conversation along so that they could order. Boo! They should let her have fun!

The waitress turned to Grunkle Ford and asked him a question “I didn’t realize that Mr. Mysterious Science Guy had such cute relatives, are they staying long?” Grunkle Ford coughed nervously before answering, probably because the reasons for her and her brother moving to town weren’t exactly a happy thing to talk about.

No darn it she wasn’t going to let her mind go there! Luckily for her the sound of her Grunkle speaking gave a distraction to her train of thought.

“Ah yes, Mabel and Dipper will be living with me from now on” Grunkle Ford explained.

“Well welcome to Gravity Falls you cute little munchkins, I’m Suzan but everyone calls me Lazy Suzan! Because of my eye!” Lazy Suzan said lifting up her eyelid and lowering it down so she could wink.

Mabel smiled while her brother looked a bit uncomfortable. Lazy Suzan seemed so nice! She wondered if she should try and set her up with Grunkle Ford.

“So what can I get you all?” Lazy Suzan asked as she and Dipper took a look at the menu one last time before ordering.

“I’ll just have a coffee thank you,” Grunkle Ford said and Mabel found herself rolling her eyes, geez was that the only thing he drinks? With the amount of coffee she’s seen him drink she can’t help but wonder why he didn’t just cut out the middleman and inject the stuff into his blood stream.

She wasn’t going to say that out loud though because she didn’t want to give him any ideas, part of her was a bit worried that he had already tried that or at least considered it.

“I’ll have the ‘don’t you four cheddar ‘bout me burger’,” Dipper said causing Lazy Susan to perk up a bit “Oh, that’s a good burger! Get it? The names a pun! Our chef loves that movie!” Lazy Suzan said causing her to giggle a bit, it was an amazing name for a burger and it was an amazing movie.

There was a reason they called it a classic and she had sung that song at many karaoke parties. To be fair though every party was a karaoke party, every party should be a karaoke party. It just wasn’t a party until you were screaming the song lyrics to on of your favorite songs at the top of your lungs.

“And what will you be having sweetie?” Lazy Suzan asked turning to her, Mabel gave a pretend look of deep concentration as she thought over her order “I will have a stack of pancakes please and thank you! With extra syrup!” she ordered causing Lazy Susan to laugh a little before leaving saying she’d be back in a bit with their orders.

“Mabel you can’t have pancakes for dinner!” Dipper said, “Watch me! I can and I will!” she replied as Lazy Susan gave Grunkle Ford his coffee. “Hey can you get my Grunkle a slice of the tastiest one of those pies?” she said to the older women pointing at a display case of pies, which probably should be spinning, but it didn’t look like it was working at the moment.

Her Grunkle looked at her in surprise and confusion as she made the order, she didn’t pay his expression much attention though. Surprise and confusion were a lot of people’s reactions to stuff she did besides this was her looking out for him.

“Sure thing honey, everyone loves pie!” Lazy Susan said as she left to give a refill of coffee to the man in the table next to theirs.

“Mabel dear I was really fine with just a coffee” Grunkle Ford said as she rolled her eyes for a guy so smart he should know that you couldn’t survive on just coffee and even if you could she wouldn’t recommend it.

“Yeah but Grunkle Ford you need more that coffee! And besides it’s like Lazy Susan said everyone loves pie! Have something sweet to balance out bitter coffee!” Mabel said to her Grunkle and wow that last line could be kind of inspirational, of course everything she did could be inspirational.

She could see her twin roll his eyes at her but he was smiling fondly and funnily enough so was Grunkle Ford “ah I see you’ve inherited the Pines family sweet tooth” he said and it caused her a moment to process his sentence but when she did her face broke out into a huge grin because boy had she ever.

“There’s a Pines family sweet tough?” she asked in excitement she heard Dipper mutter ‘oh boy’ but she quickly shushed him. Clearly he didn’t properly understand how important this all was, this was her family legacy! No this was her destiny! 

“Ah yes there have been many members of the Pines family tree who have been known for their love of sugary food in fact my twin brother Stanley-“ Grunkle Ford cut off his explanation part way though a pained look crossing his eye.

It didn’t look like the look he had when he was talking about that mentor guy but there was still something.

She saw her twin look at there Grunkle curiously and noticed a moment of realization cross over his face. It wasn’t hard to think about really; the three of them were the last Pine’s left alive so if Grunkle Ford had a twin he probably wasn’t around anymore.

Her own twin looked at her worriedly knowing they both had come to the same conclusion however uncomfortable it was. She knew that twins ran in the family but still the idea of loosing a twin was too painful. If anything happened to Dipper she didn’t know what she’d do the very thought brought a lump to her throat.

“How?” Dipper began to ask before stopping himself as if wanting to ask how Grunkle Ford’s twin died but that might have been too hard a topic to broach. She could tell Dipper didn’t know what to do and she was at a loss herself, she wanted to hug the older man but before she could Lazy Susan arrived with their food.

It was official she loved this woman.

“Pie!” Lazy Susan announced putting down a plate of what looked like cherry pie down in front of Grunkle Ford before setting down what she a Dipper ordered in front of them.

The uncomfortable silence that had smothering the table lifted instantly Grunkle Ford coughed to clear his throat and thanked Lazy Susan while Dipper nervously mumbled his own thank you’s.

Thank god the uncomfortable silence is over any longer and who knows what she would have done to break it.

“You’re the best Susan!” she said to the waitress who laughed, “Sillies, can I get you any more coffee?” she asked Grunkle Ford as he nodded “ah yes that would be much appreciated thank you” he said as Lazy Suzan went to go get the coffee jug.

“So why did she call you a mysterious science guy?” Dipper asked speaking up and honestly Mabel was not surprised that he decided to bring that statement Lazy Susan said up in fact it was more of a surprise that he waited this long to do it.

“Ah yes well I will admit I’m not the most social person,” Grunkle Ford admitted with a bit of embarrassment on his face and Mabel had to keep herself from giggling.

Instead she stole one of the fries that came with his burger from Dipper’s plate. He gave her a look as she ate it.

Well it was nice to know Dipper wasn’t alone in the ‘can’t socialize to save their life’ category of their family. Which she kind of got she was still searching for ‘her people’ after all but she was sure to find them soon.

The world was missing out though, her family was great. It looks as though she’d just have to be the only one in her family who knew how to actually talk to people. 

Another point in her growing mental list on why these boys would be lost without her.

“So we’re starting school soon right? When’s our first day?” Dipper asked their Grunkle as he tried to swat her hand away as she went to grab another one of his fries, ultimately failing and losing another delicious greasy morsel.

“Oh I already asked Grunkle Ford about that” she said before the older man could speak dipping the fry she stole in the syrup covering her pancake.

Her twin raised his eyebrow at her “so when is it?” he asked as she reached for another fry “Mabel you can order your own fries!” he said in protest as she nodded solemnly.

“True but it’s a scientific fact that fries taste better when they come from someone else’s plate” Mabel explained and grabbed another fry just to drive her point home.

She saw her twin roll his eyes “that’s not how science works Mabel!” he stated “Yes we’d have to conduct an experiment with two plates of fries one specifically for you and one for someone else and see which is more enjoyable” Grunkle Ford added into there conversation causing her to laugh while Dipper groaned into his hands.

“Can someone please just tell me when I should be expected to face the hell that is high school?” Dipper said his tone of voice sounding completely done.

“According to Grunkle Ford, in like a week” she told her twin her tone less enthusiastic than it usually is because yeah she was excited, new places to see! New people to meet! New friends to make! But at the same time ugh school.

Teachers, classes and endless homework assignments were enough to put a damper on even her mood.

Not that she was going to let it her affect her though, this new school would be great! All the new people she was going to meet were going to make up for all the boring stuff! She just knew it!

“What!?” Dipper said in response to what she said looking up suddenly.

“Wait hold on a minute what do you mean in about a week?” Dipper asked as Grunkle Ford cleared his throat to respond to him.

“Well I know how important education can be and felt it would be best not to delay it longer than necessary, especially with the end of the school year not far off. This will give the two of you plenty of time to find a place in your new school and enough time for your peers to get used to the excitement of two new students” Grunkle Ford explained his reasoning.

She watched as her brother chewed his lip with a bit of worry though she didn’t see what the big deal was really, like yeah she gets that they only came to this town basically yesterday but she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make friends.

There was like what? A month left until the summer break. Which mean she and Dipper would be coming in towards the time where all the fun preparing for summer stuff happened.

She got why Dipper was worried but she didn’t want to wait so long that it would be like ‘here’s two new students have a nice summer’ and that would be that. She wanted the chance to make new friends she could spend her summer with.

It was going to be a great summer with lots of cool things happening she could just feel it.

“Come on Dipper it’ll be great besides you’d just spend you time doing nothing at the shack otherwise.” She told her twin causing him to glare at her.

“No I wouldn’t Mabel! Besides don’t we have to properly sign up for classes and stuff?” he protested causing her to laugh when their Grunkle spoke up to get their attention.

“Ah yes, well I took the liberty of signing the two of you up for the same classes you had at your previous school however I did notice that there were some classes in Gravity Falls that were slightly different to how they were in California and some classes that weren’t available in your own school. If you want Dipper you can have a look at the papers about the subjects available and it should be very easy to make any changes you think need to be made” Grunkle Ford said trying to reassure Dipper.

“Oh can I have a look at them too Grunkle Ford? I mean I know my classes are super fun but I’d love to look at all the other stuff too.” She added hoping that if it they looked at classes together Dipper wouldn’t worry about starting school so soon.

Grunkle Ford nodded at her “I see no reason why not Mabel,” he said and luckily it looked like Dipper didn’t seem to think that it all wasn’t a terrible idea or whatever he was worrying about because he nodded as well.

“Yeah I think that might be a good plan, can we look at them when we get back?” Dipper asked causing Mabel to smile to herself; look at that Dipper was already making a plan of action.

“Of course, I can show you where I left the papers when we get home” Grunkle Ford said and yep that sounded like a plan.

Oh god why was Dipper making a face? “Papers?” he asked in confusion and oh yeah she could see the problem here he was probably thinking that they were going to look the classes up on the school website or something like sane reasonable people.

He should know by now that wasn’t how their family rolled.

“Grunkle Ford is an old soul Dipper he prints out the stuff he needs,” she explained solemnly causing her Grunkle to blush in embarrassment slightly.

“Ah yes well I might be a little old fashioned but I prefer to have a physical copy of things,” Grunkle Ford explained while Dipper nodded.

“Don’t worry Grunkle Ford I love retro stuff so there’s no need to be embarrassed or anything!” she said as her twin rolled his eyes.

They then ended up finishing their meals pretty quickly after that and headed back home to the shack.

It wasn’t too late so they still had enough energy to look through the papers though even if they didn’t she could always make a couple shots of Mabel juice. Not sure how good it would be without any plastic dinosaurs though.

It was only when they got back to the shack though that they remembered Grunkle Ford basically had papers everywhere.

“Grunkle Ford where did you say you put the papers we need again?” Dipper asked looking at the mess of papers in one of the rooms, yeah Grunkle Ford had kind been in the process of cleaning and de-cluttering the shack for them hadn’t he?

“I believe I left them near the bookshelf” Grunkle Ford said thoughtfully, “Dipper you and you’re sister can look around down here and I’ll see if I put them upstairs” Grunkle Ford suggested.

She and Dipper nodded and started rummaging through everything while trying not to make a bigger mess however it was looking pretty hopeless of finding anything.

“I’m going to go ask Grunkle Ford if he found them upstairs” she said to her twin because this was taking ages!

“Yeah sure,” Dipper said though it seems like his attention was taken up by something that might be behind the book case that he spotted as he was currently using what little strength his noodle arms had to make more room between the back of the book case and the wall.

“If you get your arm stuck in there I’m going to take picture before helping you out” she said as she left the room, “Mabel!” her twin called after her in annoyance as she made her way upstairs and found Grunkle Ford organizing a pile of papers.

“Ah Mabel I found the papers about the classes” Grunkle Ford said with a bit of pride to his voice handing the papers to her as she came up to him. “Oh my gosh! That’s so great Dipper and I weren’t able to find anything downstairs so I figured they must have been upstairs am I right”. She said glancing at the papers oh there’s an interpretive dance class! That was perfect!

“Yes that would be safe to assume with deductive reasoning well done Mabel,” he said sincerely and encouragingly that she couldn’t help but have her smile grow wider. 

“Thanks Grunkle Ford, I’m going to take these down to show Dipper since he was still looking before I came up” she said as he nodded, “yes it would be a shame for him to waste time looking for papers that aren’t there. I think I’ll just organize some of these documents I found among the papers at the moment” Grunkle Ford told her already picking up some stuff with weird looking writing on it.

She mentally shrugged before speaking again “ok Grunkle Ford,” she said making her way downstairs and back to Dipper.

When she got there though she stopped for a moment as she saw him reading an old looking book intently.

He was silently reading the book out loud muttering to himself and the look on his face was an incredibly serious one. Well she knew what to do whenever her brother was taking himself too seriously.

She crept up behind he as he closed the old, dusty book muttering to himself thoughtfully “no one you can trust…”

“HALLO!” she yelled suddenly causing him to yell and practically have a heart attack as he nearly dropped the book.

“Grunkle Ford found the stuff!” she explained holding out the papers as her twin tried to calm himself down, “What’cha readin’, some nerd thing?” she asked as he started to try and hide the book behind his back.

“Uh, uh, it’s nothing!” he said quickly “uh, uh, it’s nothing!” Mabel said jokingly imitating Dipper’s voice before laughing but stopped when she noticed Dipper hadn’t said anything or complained about her poking fun at him.

“What? Are you actually not gonna show me?” she asked concern and disbelief worming their way into her voice because Dipper was acting weirder than the usual Dipper weird and to be honest it was kind of worrying.

Her twin had a serious expression on his face that didn’t really suit him before speaking, “Let’s go somewhere private”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter sorry it took a while, but looks like the ball is about to start rolling thank you to everyone who has been reading so far.


	4. Caught Between Direction and Stories

Mabel watched as her twin brother paced up and down their shared bed room which was something she usually saw when he was stressed out or concerned about something important.

He had grabbed her and dragged her up to their room in the attic and then locked the door, turned some stuffed animals that she had bought at the mall around so they were facing the wall which seemed unfair they weren’t allowed to see whatever conversation she was going to have with her brother because those stuffed animals were adorable and amazing, and Dipper then pulled down the screen on the window and turned on the electric lamp.

To be honest this was some serious paranoia that her brother was showing and it was making Mabel kind of worried.

At times like this it was best to distract him from his thoughts with some of her trademark adorable silliness.

“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked causing her twin to stop pacing and look at her, “come on spill the beans” she said as she knocked over an empty can of beans on the table in between their beds that she had been intending to make into a pencil holder for Grunkle Ford as a gift. “Boop. Beans.”

“Okay, Mabel this is going to sound crazy-“ Her twin started to say before she interrupted him.

“Crazier than the time you thought that the guy I was dating was a zombie?” she asked jokingly.

“We were twelve! And that guy never blinked once the entire time we knew him! How did you never notice that?” Dipper defended himself.

“Maybe he was just blinking when you were blinking.” She reasoned with her twin, which is funny because due to their personalities what with her enthusiasm about most things and energy most people assume that Dipper is the reasonable one; and he sometimes is but with his conspiracy theories Dipper can sometimes get… carried away.

“Ugh! Can we please talk about something else?” Her brother said in exasperation as she shrugged.

“Sure the guy ended up being a jerk anyway,” she said dismissively. When they had broken up it had hurt like all her ended relationships but she always had learned to move on and find someone new.

Mabel loved a lot as she could fall in love in three seconds.

Yeah, not a lot of her relationships lasted especially long per say. But she was a romantic at heart and knew her soul mate was out there!

Heck, she hadn't even been in town long but she had already met a cute blonde and gotten her chum handle.

“Okay so listen there’s more to Great Uncle Ford than we realized,” Dipper began pulling her away from her thoughts and causing her to groan. Grunkle Ford had practically told them what he did a lunch and she thought that would satisfy Dipper.

Apparently not because he was back on the subject from the looks of things.

“Dipper-“ she began as her twin hastily interrupted her.

“Hear me out okay!” he said practically begging her to listen holding up the book that he had found.

She wanted to poke fun at him, like she did whenever her brother took himself too seriously. Push him out of his seriousness and back towards reality but something in his tone stopped her.

It wasn’t that he was taking a situation too seriously it was that this situation whatever it was, was serious maybe more serious than either of them had ever really experienced.

“Okay, but I thought Grunkle Ford helped manage a lumberjack business. Which is kind of cool if you ask me!” Mabel said trying to make her voice sound joking and dismissive to lighten her brother’s mood but not exactly managing it. At least it worked in some way though because she could practically feel her twin trying not to roll his eyes.

“What was in that old book that could make you this paranoid?” she asked because that was the root of the matter right? Dipper had started acting weird when she found him reading that book.

So whatever happen it had to have been that books fault.

Mabel found herself rolling her eyes at Dipper’s slight shock to her question, “Come on Dipper you’ve been in full conspiracy mode since you found it!” she said jokingly before deciding to sit up straight and look directly at her twin.

“Dipper, whatever it is I’ll listen okay?” She said softly because no matter what it was she would listen to her brother. She always tried to, yeah sometimes she brushed him off but he was the most important person in the world to her.

Dipper was always there for her. So Mabel tried to be there for him as much as she could.

“Whatever you’ve found I’ll stick with you, you know?” Mabel said softly as her twin nodded.

“Yeah I know,” he said quietly his voice nearly inaudible like he had something stuck in his throat.

“Okay Dip dop! Shoot!” Mabel said trying to lighten the mood after it got a bit heavy there for a sec. Not a bad heavy to be honest but still the mood needed to be lightened.

Yeah sometimes Dipper thought she didn’t take things seriously, but if everything were taken seriously you’d be crushed by the weight of it all! The world needs some fun every now and then!

Her brother tended to over think things, he needed someone who would remind him how to breathe. 

When Mabel saw a slight smile close to forming on her twins mouth she knew she’d made the right move.

Dipper took a deep breath before he began. 

“I know you think I was being paranoid, but according to this book, Gravity Falls has this secret dark side.” Dipper said as he began pacing again this time while flicking through the book he found only pausing to show her a page.

She should have probably looked at the page carefully but what Dipper had started telling her was kind of exciting, an old town with a secret mystery sounded like an idea for a super cool TV show.

“Whoa! Shut. Up!” she said pushing him excitedly, were they going to end up looking for buried treasure or something? She hoped so.

“And get this! After a certain point, the pages just… stop, before then it was like there was this huge event leading up to it. Whatever happened I don’t think he could bring himself to continue in this journal,” Dipper said looking thoughtfully at the pages of the old book.

“Who?” she asked prompting her brother to continue speaking, she could tell that there was more to this than some cool conspiracy or something to solve, for some reason though it seemed like her twin was struggling with what to say next.

“The author… Great Uncle Ford…” Dipper responded suddenly not meeting her eye. She let out a fake gasp when it seemed like her twin was having trouble with the rest of this explanation.

“Gasp! So Grunkle Ford is involved in some secret mystery!” she exclaimed jokingly to cheer her brother up when he suddenly started speaking quietly.

“Mabel… I think this might…this is… this is connected to what happen to mom and dad.” Dipper said in a near whisper.

…Huh?

Wait… back up for a minute…

Time seemed to slow down… what did Dipper just say? Had she heard right?

She was… she couldn’t properly process the words that had come out of her twins mouth.

“…Ha. Ha… what?” Mabel asked her laugh was strained and nervous meanwhile Dipper’s eyes were full of apology.

“Mabel… I know… I know this sounds weird but please-“ Dipper said when Mabel interrupted him.

“Come on Dipper a big conspiracy connected to that? … That’s a pretty bad joke…” she said forcing the words to come out, why were they having this conversation? She didn’t want this!

“Mabel please!” her brother said desperately, “you said you’d listen” he said the last part sadly as she shook her head.

“I am listening but I just don’t get it!” Mabel felt like she was close to either shouting or crying she wasn’t sure which.

“Please just listen to this okay Mabel, please…” Her brother said opening up the old book he found and started reading, “June 18th, it's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon…”

Dipper started reading from that weird old book and the more he read the more Mabel wanted to cover her ears, scream, run away, tell Dipper to stop because none of it was true!

Except it was true…

None of it made sense yet at the same time it did.

Spirits…

There are monsters in this world. Monsters that kill and eat souls to survive, monsters that had killed their parents, monsters that had hurt her family. When Dipper finished her brother looked at her with concern as if she was going to cry.

She felt like crying maybe she already was but after a few seconds of silence as all the information she had just received sunk in there was one emotion that swallowed her.

Anger.

These things had taken away her parents, and probably who knows how many other family members! These things had destroyed her home and taken away everything she had ever known!

“Hey Mabel,” Dipper said, his voice surprisingly cold knocking her out of her thoughts.

“Yeah?” she practically whispered her voice not really working after everything she had just found.

“When mom and dad died, I kind of felt empty… I tried to distract myself with everything no anything!” Dipper’s voice trembled as he spoke but Mabel nodded understandingly prompting him to continue.

“But there was nothing we could do, because… because it was just some tragic accident… but now… but now-“ her brother stopped speaking when she grabbed his hand that had began to shake and she looked directly at him making eye contact.

They both had the same determined look in their eyes.

“Now we have something to blame!” she finished for him as her twin nodded.

That’s right now they had something to blame, something to hold responsible and they were going to make sure that whatever had taken their parent’s away from them paid.

You do not mess with a member of Mabel’s family!

She took in a deep breath trying to control the rage that was building up inside of her, she could practically feel the heaviness of the air from the serious conversation topic that she had been having with Dipper.

Shaking her head she decided to clear the air before they all suffocated.

“Okay Dip-dop! What do we do?” she asked enthusiastically turning to her brother who gave a slight smile at her question.

“I think we need to have a talk with Great Uncle Ford.” Dipper said holding onto the weird book he found as if it was a lifeline. That book had told them the truth but knowing what they know now Mabel wasn’t sure if the fact that Dipper had found it was a good thing or a bad thing.

But now they had to deal with what they had learnt and move forward from there.

“You know something Dipper? All this conspiracy stuff reminds me of the time when we were kids and we would try and solve any problem we came across: what happened to the missing pencil? Who ate the last cookie? Why was Kevin such a jerk?” Mabel remembered their childhood antics fondly. Okay she wasn’t sure she would call them childhood antics they were only sixteen but it was still a long time ago.

Mable was nowhere near ready to call herself anything even close to an adult. Nope, she was going to stay a child forever thank you very much.

She had no idea why Dipper always seemed to be in a rush to grow up.

Dipper smirked as he remembered their old shenanigans as well “if I remember correctly the one who ate the last cookie was you Mabel,” he joked as she let out as fake offended gasp.

“I was framed! Framed I tell you!” she defended herself as her brother let out a small laugh.

“Okay so it’s time to make Great Uncle Ford tell us what the heck is going on! Mystery Twins?” Dipper said holding out his fist for her while referring to the old nickname adults used to call them when they played detective and tried to solve crimes.

“I thought you hated that,” she said in surprise because latterly every time someone called them the mystery twins growing up Dipper would tell them not to call them that.

“I’m staring to accept it.” Dipper admitted with a shrug, they gave each other a fist bump before running out of their room to go find Grunkle Ford.

Grunkle Ford had moved to the kitchen and had some sheets of paper out that he was looking through on the small table in the kitchen only looking up when the twins walked in making a bit of noise to get his attention.

“Ah, Mabel, Dipper. I was just looking over some old work papers. Did you look though those subject papers?” he asked, oh yeah. They’d been looking for those when Dipper found the book hidden away behind a bookshelf, they had found them thanks to Grunkle Ford but those papers had basically been abandoned with all the new junk that came up.

It was suddenly very hard to care about whether or not to choose to take French or Spanish as your language class when there were murderous monsters out there that had killed practically all your family.

But with America’s current education system she would understand if someone felt that they had to focus more on school stuff than murderous spirit monsters. Kudos to you metaphorical buddy, you do you!

“Yeah some other stuff kind of distracted us,” Mabel admitted suddenly not sure how to approach their Grunkle.

Yeah she wanted answers and the truth and all that stuff but where would you even start with that? ‘Hey we just learnt that monsters are real and seem to be out to get our family specifically what’s up with that?’ or ‘Why the heck is this town so cray-cray?’ aren’t exactly normal conversational topics.

“Oh, well it is quite late so the two of you must be tiered. I’m sure you’ll both have plenty of time to look at them in the morning and there is still nearly a week before you both start school so there’s a sufficient amount of time.” Grunkle Ford attempted to reassure them. 

Mabel wondered if she looked guilty or something, after all from what she’s seen with her time with him Grunkle Ford just wanted them both to be safe. He was family and asking the questions they needed to ask might hurt him, she didn’t want to upset their Grunkle but these were things they needed to know.

Either Dipper didn’t feel guilty about the spot they were about to put their Grunkle in or he needed to know the answers to his questions more than any guilt he could possible have.

“What are those paper’s your looking at?” Dipper asked his voice sounding much more steady than it should be given the current situation.

Grunkle Ford looked down at the kitchen table that was littered with papers and started hurriedly packing them up, “Oh nothing that would interest you Dipper my boy just some old things from work. A bit boring if I’m being honest.” The older man said causing her brother to give out a bitter laugh.

Despite her policy that smiling was something everyone should do, always. Mabel found herself frowning that is not how a laugh should sound.

“Sure honesty…” Dipper noted and Mabel could feel it, she could just feel that her brother was about to burst.

Usually she would do something, usually she could do something but she found herself frozen in place unable to move, to speak, to do anything other than watch what was about to happen. 

“Dipper, is everything quite all right?” Grunkle Ford asked noticing Dipper’s bitter tone the older man’s eyes examining the twins. Mabel felt herself look away from her Grunkle at his concerned tone.

It was then that she realized that Dipper had been hiding the book he had found behind his back.

“Yeah I’m fine. So, uh would you mind if I ask you a couple billion questions about Gravity Falls?” Dipper joked taking a seat across from their Grunkle.

“Ha, that’s quite a question Dipper. Why the sudden interest in the town?” Grunkle Ford asked.

Without saying anything Dipper placed the book he found down on the table.

Grunkle Ford looked down at the old book in disbelief before placing his six-fingered hand on the cover of it after a few seconds.

“Dipper’s been doing some reading,” she joked nervously finding her voice as Grunkle Ford looked at the book.

“I thought this journal had been lost thirty years ago,” Grunkle Ford said quietly his voice barley above a whisper as if he couldn’t believe the journal in front of him was actually real.

“Well Dipper’s great at finding things,” Mabel joked half-heartedly giving a tiered laugh.

“Working with a lumberjack business! I can’t believe I let myself actually believe that! I knew something was wrong I knew it!” Dipper said angrily.

Grunkle Ford suddenly looked up whatever trance he’d been in from seeing an old journal from his past was broken at the realization of the situation that the twins were putting him in.

“Dipper, I know this must all be very upsetting for you and your sister but please trust me when I say-“ Grunkle Ford began when Dipper cut him off.

“Trust you! You were willing to lie to our faces! Were you ever going to tell us?! Or were you content for us to live our entire lives not knowing that the… the things that had killed our parents were out there!?” Dipper demanded angrily and Mabel found herself biting her lip suddenly not able to look at her Grunkle.

“A lot of people have been killed by these creatures, their loved ones never knowing why they died,” Grunkle Ford said sadly leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments.

Grunkle Ford put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder and Mabel watched her brother try not to flinch.

“Dipper please, trust me. I’ve only wanted what’s best for you and your sister. I wanted to protect you both. I’ve lost too much to the spirits already.” Grunkle Ford said sadly.

Mabel felt herself unable to remain indifferent to the sad look in her Grunkle’s eyes.

To be fair she and Dipper didn’t know much about their Grunkle, but she’d like to.

From what she’d heard he isolated himself from his family but family needed to stick together! The three of them were all that was left of the Pines family; they needed to trust each other because this involved all of them.

“Grunkle Ford please tell us what’s going on,” Mabel found herself pleading.

“Yeah, Great Uncle Ford, no more lies! You owe us some answers: What's the deal with these…spirits? Why did you keep this a secret?” Dipper demanded.

“And did they really kill mom and dad?” Mabel asked so quietly, she wasn’t sure if Dipper and Grunkle Ford had heard her, her voice had been barley above a whisper.

Moments of silence ticked by, she used the word tick because the room the three of them were in had become so quiet that Mabel could hear the sound of a ticking clock out in the hall.

“Come on who wants to tell us their entire mysterious backstory?” Mabel joked half heartedly as the silence dragged on unable to handle the uncomfortable quiet.

Eventually Grunkle Ford’s shoulders slumped almost as if in defeat as he met the twins expectant gazes.

The older man sighed and put his hand on his face, at that moment Mabel was suddenly aware of how old Grunkle Ford was. He was in his sixties right? How long hand he been fighting spirits? How many people hand he lost?

It took every ounce of self-control that Mabel had not to go up and hug her Grunkle at that moment.

“I suppose that you two are owed an explanation,” he admitted with a sad look in his eye “you both should sit down for this.”

\---

Dipper was sitting in the couch with the shack living room waiting for his sister to finish making hot chocolate so Great Uncle Ford could finally give them some actual answers for once. He still couldn’t believe that she was already using the hot chocolate that she had bought at the mall. Only his sister would buy stuff to make hot chocolate and coco this close to summer.

But he guesses this was as good as any reason to use it, when Great Uncle Ford had suggested that they all sit down for this Mabel had insisted that they all move into the living room where they would all be more comfortable.

So here he was sitting on an old faded couch, wearily watching the older man that was his Great Uncle standing at the other end of the room while his sister was making hot chocolate because ‘lot’s has happened and hot chocolate can make anything feel better’ according to his twin.

Not that he was going to refuse the hot chocolate if his sister insisted on making it. Honestly the past few hours had been so emotionally draining he wouldn’t mind something warm and comforting. Wait had it been hours? Everything had happened so fast really.

They’d been looking for some papers about class subject for high school to see if there was anything they wanted to change and then he’d found a dusty old journal hidden behind the bookcase. Hidden away but also almost as if it was there waiting for him to find.

And then he learnt that what happened to his parents wasn’t some unforeseeable, uncontrollable event.

There was something to blame, something to hold accountable. And the ‘Pines family curse’ wasn’t a bunch of superstitious nonsense after all.

Dipper held the old journal he had found close to him as if it was the only thing keeping him from drowning in the sea on unanswered questions that he had. He had grabbed it as soon as Great Uncle Ford had taken his hand off it and left it alone. 

Dipper had a feeling that the older man that now served, as his guardian probably would have liked to keep the journal, have it returned to him. Or at the very least get it away from Dipper. No way was he letting that happen.

The journal was his first source of answers to the mysteries and questions that until now he hadn’t realize enveloped his entire life, his entire family and Dipper felt that if he let his Great Uncle take the journal away then everything else would disappear with it.

That everything about spirits and a way to solve the mystery surrounding his family and avenge his parents would disappear in smoke as if it was all nothing more than a dream.

No, no Dipper did not want that to happen.

Now that Dipper knew there was someone or rather something to blame for the loss of his parents he realized how deeply he needed something to blame. Something to get angry at, something to face, confronts, something physical that he could actually deal with.

Because when you lose a loved one for no reason your angry at no one so you get angry with yourself. You have to deal with your own mind and emotions and honestly powerful monsters seemed way easier to deal with.

Dipper found his grip on the journal tightening. It was good that he found this out this gave him something to do, something to deal with. This gave him a way to move forward.

At that moment Mabel came in with a tray of three mugs of hot chocolate and a blanket slung over her arm.

When the hell did she get the blanket, she had to move through this room to get out of the kitchen and through the rest of the house. Unless maybe he guesses if she went out the kitchen back door, and back in through the front door to access the rest of the house but he doubted that because he hadn’t heard any of the doors opening and closing.

Whatever after nearly over sixteen years Dipper Pines had learnt to stop really questioning how his sister managed to do some of the things she did and just kind of accept it.

Mabel handed Great Uncle Ford his mug of hot chocolate and he watched as the older man thanked her twin for it, he watched his Great Uncle with some suspicion. After everything he had just learnt he didn’t really know who to trust, could he trust his Great Uncle after knowing he was trying to keep what really happened to mom and dad a secret?

Could Dipper trust anyone?

“Here you go Dipper,” Mabel said warmly despite the situation breaking Dipper out of his current chain of thoughts. 

He knows that Mabel liked to look on the bright side of things; it was almost like she needed to sometimes. It got kind of frustrating sometimes but he knew that Mabel was often thinking of what she thought would be best for others and had their best interests in mind. 

When he told her about spirits it had been hard for her, he knows it had he could see her reactions to everything he read from the journal. She accepted it a little bit easier than he thought she would; he was almost worried that she would try and reject the idea or be a lot harder to convince than she had been.

But then again, he guesses that Mabel needed something to blame and get angry at just as much as he had.

“Thanks Mabel,” Dipper said as he took a mug of hot chocolate that she was holding out for him and he took her mug as well when she prompted him to and then his twin began to wrap the blanket around them with one end of the blanket over each of their shoulders before taking her mug back.

Dipper found himself smiling a bit to himself. 

No matter what the situation Mabel could always make him smile.

If there was anyone in this world Dipper could trust it was his sister, the person who had been by his side since birth.

Ouch! He burnt himself on the hot chocolate causing Mabel to laugh as he stuck out his tongue to cool it in the room’s air.

“You have to blow on it first Dipper!” Mabel said still giggling a little bit, Dipper found himself rolling his eyes. This was the one person in the entire world that he could trust above all else everyone.

Carefully blowing on the hot chocolate Dipper eyed his Great Uncle before taking a sip.

“So here we are,” Dipper said finally feeling that they had waited more than long enough.

“Yes here we are,” Great Uncle Ford, noted a sad smile on his face, “this is lovely Mabel dear.” Great Uncle Ford noted taking a sip of the hot chocolate himself as Dipper’s twin nodded approvingly.

“Thank you,” she said simply and afterwards there was a moment of silence. 

After a few seconds of silence Great Uncle Ford finally spoke up, “So I take it the two of you want answers?” he asked as the twins both nodded in unison. 

The older man began walking up and down the room at a slow pace as he began to speak.

“There are many creatures in this world and some lucky few or perhaps unlucky depending on your perspective learn that the stories of the creatures that go bump in the night aren’t simply just story.” Great Uncle Ford began when Mabel suddenly raised her hand.

“Question do vampires exist?” she asked as Dipper felt himself role his eyes, oh my god Mabel do not try and date a vampire!

Wow, he can’t believe he just thought that with seriousness but heck at this point vampires could very well exist and his sister running off to try and date one may very well be something that Dipper is going to have to be concerned about.

Okay as much as he loved conspiracies and mysteries he honestly never expected his life to get this weird.

“Ah, you mean like in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” Ford responded to Mabel’s question, an element of approval in his tone sometimes Dipper felt like his Great Uncle gave them too much credit.

“I don’t blame your mind going towards vampires Mabel, they were traditionally known as soul sucking monsters but spirits are in fact different. In reality all the myths and legends: Vampires, werewolves, goblins, gnomes, fairies, gods etc. Any mythological creature that has ever been recorded has in fact been a creature known as a spirit,” Great Uncle Ford explained and Dipper noticed his sister try not to look too disappointed.

“Even big foot?” Dipper found himself asking,

“Even big foot that or there is just a really hairy guy out there,” Great Uncle Ford admitted before continuing, “I’m not entirely sure why spirits do such things perhaps some feel it is a good way to catch pray, perhaps they are mocking humans or perhaps they simply find such things enjoyable. Spirit’s natures aren’t ones you can make sense of, they are dangerous and untrustworthy creatures” Great Uncle Ford said the last part as a warning, the mention of trust left a bitter look on the older mans face.

“I began to learn about spirits around the time I was about to enter college, at that point in time I felt unsure about my future as I’m sure most young people do. My chances of attending my dream school had been stolen away from me and I knew I would have to work twice as hard from that point on if I truly wanted to make something of myself, to go down in history as one of the greats. It was then at that point whether it was luck, coincidence or perhaps even destiny I met him.” A nostalgic but sad look spread onto the older mans face as if he was looking into another time.

“The ‘world renowned explorer-naturalist-treasure hunter-archeologist-scientist-adventurer-big game hunter-billionaire extraordinaire’ I mentioned earlier, he noticed my potential and offered to fund my education. I obviously felt in his debt and wished to repay him in whatever way I could so I began helping out a bit with his company, I began to work closely with him and he would continue to be a loyal supporter and trusted friend. He even introduced me to his adopted daughter and would often invite me over for dinner.” Great Uncle Ford told them his face and voice nostalgic.

“He was more of a father to me than my actual father though in all honestly that probably wasn’t much of a difficult feat to manage. I still regret the fact that I was not there when he-“ Great Uncle Ford’s voice broke and he cleared his throat to continue, Dipper found himself making eye contact with his sister, they had an idea what he meant, they could guess what happens, what always happens.

“Eventually he trusted me with the truth and offered me the opportunity to be part of something much greater than myself, to fight against this worlds evil. He offered me the chance to be a hunter,” Great Uncle Ford said putting more force on the word hunter as if it was something of great importance, Dipper found himself leaning forward in anticipation.

“He told me about spirits, what they were, how he fought them. He had started running a business that had been around for hundreds of years that hunted spirits and protected as many people as they could. He told me why he had joined the organization and reasons why some fought these monsters. He offered me the chance to join them and so I did.” Great Uncle Ford said the last bit simply taking a breath before continuing.

“I was once like the two of you, full of the eagerness for knowledge wanting to know the answers to all my questions, wanting to know everything I could.” Great Uncle Ford told them and Dipper found himself nodding.

“Eventually I decided to try and answer my own questions and began looking for places with high concentrations of spirits to conduct my research which eventually brought me here, for a place with a long history of spirits there is also a long history of hunters the two often seem to go hand in hand.” Great Uncle Ford’s voice was near a laugh as if it was ironic that something that he saw as noble like hunting walked hand in hand with something as monstrous as spirits. 

Dipper guesses there couldn’t be hero’s without some form of evil to fight against.

“The Corduroys were once a family of ordinary lumberjacks who faced a great tragedy from spirits attacking them, wanting revenge for lost loved ones they began to fight the spirits and the Northwest’s wanting to defend the town they had founded were more than willing to arm them, when I came to this town I began working with the Corduroys, making them more efficient but soon I decided I would need more help if I wanted to move further in my research,” Great Uncle Ford stopped as if remembering something painful.

Mabel could probably sense this because she tried to comfort the older man “Grunkle Ford if this is too hard then maybe-" his sister began when their Great Uncle held up a hand to stop her.

“Its quite all right Mable dear, you and your brother deserve to hear this” Great Uncle Ford said as Dipper nodded, they deserved to know the truth Dipper didn’t want secrets to be kept from him, to be left in the dark and be lied to.

Great Uncle Ford took a breath before continuing 

“I decided to call up my old college buddy, Fiddleford McGucket, a young but brilliant man, who was wasting his talent trying to make personal computers in some garage in Palo Alto. Well it seemed like a waste of his talent at the time, things probably would have been better for him if he had stayed in Palo Alto but he could never say no to a friend asking for help,” Great Uncle Ford said sadly,

“He was my most trusted friend and I entrusted him with the secrets of spirits, he wasn’t fully prepared for the world of spirits but he didn’t want to see innocent people get hurt and agreed to help me any way he could…” Great Uncle Ford said his voice trailing off towards the end.

“Cipher killed him,” the older man said suddenly and quietly saying the word ‘Cipher’ with absolute venom.

“Wait Cipher, I’ve heard this before!” Dipper said interrupting the story and leafing through the journal until finding the page he was looking for “okay here we are, ‘Beware Cipher, the most powerful and dangerous spirit I've ever encountered. Whatever you do, never let him enter your mind’” Dipper read out a page hastily written in and covered in blood he looked up and saw his Great Uncle nodding seriously.

“He is truly the most evil thing I have ever faced, and had the power to manipulate your dreams which makes him incredibly dangerous,” their Great Uncle explain and Dipper could practically see the shiver that ran down his sister’s spine.

“Oh of course there are ways to protect yourself from his influence, he can not harm anyone inside the shack.” Their Great Uncle reassured.

“Perhaps I should be honored that he sees me as a worthy adversary but it is as though I am playing a deadly game of chess with him and he kills the people close to me as a way to get back at me for trying to protect this town from him, it was why your parents died.” He explained and Dipper felt the anger build up inside him and he heard Mabel gasp next to him.

“So the ‘Pines family curse’ where everyone who’s related to us had died is because of this Cipher guy?” Dipper asked bitterly his Great Uncle nodding

“Why didn’t you do anything?” Mabel practically screamed suddenly causing surprise from Dipper and Great Uncle Ford. “If you could protect this place from him why couldn’t you protect every one else? Why didn’t you protect other places?” Dipper saw his twin demand her tone a mix of anger and sadness that didn’t really suite her, he was more used to her happy voice but right now his sister was this close to going into ‘sweater town’.

“I had tried Mabel, but the truth about spirits is hard for some people to believe and whenever I tried to protect my family it simply made Cipher more motivated to hurt them, so in my last effort to protect everyone I cut ties with anyone who wasn’t a hunter in hopes that if I showed disinterest Cipher would not bother to kill anymore of my family.” Great Uncle Ford explained.

“Yeah, well the fact that Mabel and I are here now instead of California shows that plan didn’t work,” Dipper said the bitter words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“No, it didn’t” Great Uncle Ford admitted sadly.

“You don’t isolate yourself from your family Grunkle Ford! Family is supposed to help each other!” Mabel said ferocity shone in her eyes.

“I know Mabel I’m sorry but you have my word that I will do everything in my power to protect you and your brother.” The older man, their only family left reassured softly.

His sister bolted off the couch and gave Great Uncle Ford a hug; he seemed surprised at first before he returned it.

“There’s still more I want to know,” Dipper muttered as the hug ended and the older man nodded understandingly “I’m sure you do,” Great Uncle Ford said,

“I want to join,” he said simply as Mabel’s head snapped towards him in surprise, Dipper could see his sister processing what he said before she nodded “I want to join too!” she spoke up.

Great Uncle Ford was looking at them in disbelief when his sister stated speaking again.

“We found all this out when we were looking for class subject sheets, so this can be like, an extracurricular” Dipper’s twin joked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chapter is out and so is the truth about spirits or so the twins speak, the next couple of chapters are going to be fun. Thank you to anyone reading my story so far.


	5. Caught Between Lumberjacks and Decisions

“Absolutely not!” Great Uncle Ford told him yet again, at this point it was starting to get tiring but there was no way Dipper and Mabel were going to give up this was too important. They had a purpose, a way to move forward, there was no way they could just turn a blind eye to that!

The day before Dipper and his sister had found out about the existence of spirits, evil creatures that kill humans for food, monsters that had killed their parents but they had also been able to learn about hunters that fought and eradicated these things.

After learning about spirits Dipper found out he had something to blame for losing his parents, and after finding out about hunters Dipper realized there was a way for him to get revenge.

Mabel was with him in this, his sister wanted revenge for what the spirits had done just as much as he did. Or at least he thought she did, there was a part of Dipper that wondered if his sister only wanted to be a hunter because she didn’t want him to face the spirits alone.

Dipper found that Mabel was always looking out for him like that, though this was the most deadly scenario they had faced the twins always tried to look out for each other. Whether it was him cheering up Mabel after she had been teased or Mabel taking on school bullies for him.

The twins always had each other’s backs and they always would.

Right now though they had to focus on getting Great Uncle Ford to train them as hunters, their Great Uncle’s approval wasn’t something that was completely necessary they could always try and figure out how to go after spirits themselves but Dipper felt that they would probably get a lot further and survive a lot longer if they had someone to teach them how to fight spirits than if they didn’t.

But despite expressing how much this meant to them Great Uncle Ford didn’t seem to budge “Great Uncle Ford please you don’t understand,” Dipper said trying to push his point as his Great Uncle let out a tiered sigh, they’d been arguing about this for a while neither showing any sign of budging from their sides of the argument.

No way was Dipper going to break first though, this was too important.

“I’m not sure you and your sister understand, hunting is dangerous. You both could get seriously hurt or even die.” Great Uncle Ford tried to reason with him. A rational part of Dipper could understand why his Great Uncle was so against the idea of the twins becoming hunters, the older man had already lost so much. But right now Dipper couldn’t care less what his rational side had to say.

“I’m willing to take that risk!” Dipper told him, emotion clear on his voice. He had to help fight against the spirits now that he knew they were out there he couldn’t just do nothing but as soon as the words left Dipper’s mouth he watched as the older man’s face hardened.

“Well I am most certainly not!” Great Uncle Ford said harshly.

They glared at each other in silence, neither one backing down. There was a silent challenge from each side, who knows how bad the argument would have gotten if Mabel hadn’t walked into the room at that moment.

“Hey you two! Guess who’s here? Mabel’s here!” Mabel announced as she walked into the room, sometimes it felt like his sister didn’t quite know how to take things seriously. At this point Dipper couldn’t really be sure if she was doing this sort of thing on purpose or not anymore.

But regardless on whether or not his sister knew what a serious situation was or not her presence managed to break the tension that had been building up in the room. Dipper could practically feel both himself and his Great Uncle deflating as they both calmed down. Mabel always seemed to be able to calm him down whenever he got too riled up so Dipper guesses that he was grateful that he had Mabel to calm him down even in important situations like this. 

Dipper felt the anger that had been building up over Great Uncle Ford’s stubbornness subside as he watched the older man turn his attention to over to Mabel. 

“Ah Mabel, is there anything you need?” Great Uncle Ford asked her, his voice sounded relieved at the distraction from the conversation or rather argument he’d been having with Dipper since this morning. Dipper felt his eyes narrow at the older man; he couldn’t keep avoiding talking about this forever no matter how hard he tried. Dipper would make sure of it. 

Dipper watched as his sister shrugged before answering, it wouldn’t really surprise him if his sister had come in for no real reason. Maybe she’d say something sappy like she ‘just wanted to see them’. That was the kind of thing Mabel would do, sometimes she’d so something specifically because it was sappy or overdramatic. Sometimes Dipper liked that about her and sometimes she’d walk in when he was doing something important and her interrupting him would just make him frustrated.

Honestly though he actually hadn’t seen much of Mabel today until now so it might actually be she just wanted to see them. Today seemed to be one of the rare days he’d woken up before his sister, not that he could blame her for sleeping in he was exhausted after everything they learnt last night and as soon as he could Dipper went looking for Great Uncle Ford to push the whole ‘I want to be a hunter’ matter.

“Nothing much Grunkle Ford, it’s just nearly noon and I was wondering if you and Dipper were hungry,” Mabel answered their Great Uncle cheerfully. Dipper couldn’t believe it was already noon but then again he guesses time flies when you’re making important life decisions.

“Ah excellent idea Mabel, I hadn’t realized it was so close to lunch” Great Uncle Ford noted in a fond tone as Mabel smiled at the older man. Wait was he trying to use this as an opportunity to drop the subject? No that wasn’t fair!

“Cool! Dipper come help me with lunch!” Mabel said grabbing onto his arm before he even had time to process her sentence. Before he knew it Mabel was already pulling him away, he couldn’t help but feel slightly defeated since he was basically leaving without making any progress.

“Huh?” was the only thing he could say as Mabel began to pull him out of the room, “Mabel, hey wait a second,” he continued while his sister ignored his protest. If his sister could just listen to him for once that would be great.

“I’ll be in my study looking over some papers, call me when it’s time for lunch!” Great Uncle Ford called after them as they began to get out of their Great Uncle’s sight. Great no there Great Uncle was going to hide away in his study to avoid talking. 

Wait Great Uncle Ford had a study? Wait he was a genius that helped run the literal ghost busters of course he had a study.

“Mabel what gives?” Dipper said pulling his arm free from his sister’s hold, he watched his sister roll her eyes at him before she replied. He rubbed his arm slightly as Mabel began talking, Mabel was strong and she had a bit of a death grip so it wasn’t any wonder he felt a bit sore where she grabbed him, not because he ‘bruised like a peach’ or whatever Mabel would say.

“What, did you expect me to make all your meals for you by myself Sir Dipping sauce?” Mabel joked giving a fake bow and making a silly voice as if she were talking to royalty and Dipper couldn’t help himself in rolling his eyes.

Okay so maybe she had a point that it wasn’t fair for her to make all the meals every day, Dipper just hadn’t been thinking about normal stuff because he’d been so caught up in all this mess over spirits. Though he guesses even though the world kind of changed in a way by the discovery of spirits that didn’t change the fact that they still needed to do basic human stuff like sleep and eat.

You wouldn’t think that out of the two of them Mabel ‘got banned from a petting zoo for sticking a traffic cone on a horse because she wanted to make a unicorn’ Pines was the one that would be more aware of basic human needs like sleeping and eating but there you go.

If it wasn’t for her energy and creative way of thinking Mabel could’ve been the ‘normal’ one out twins. But Dipper was glad she wasn’t there was a certain comfort with them both growing up as ‘those weird Pines twins’; it meant that they stuck together.

Besides after learning about spirits he was starting to think it might actually be better to be a little weird after all turns out the world itself was more than just a little weird it was practically crazy.

“Well I so help with the dishes,” Dipper half-heartedly joked as Mabel laughed and shoved him. Though he did make a good point and it wasn’t like he could cook any way so helping with the dishes was totally pulling his weight.

“Come one Dipper, how do you feel about a cheese and mushroom omelet for lunch?” Mabel suggested as he followed her into the kitchen telling her that sounded great. Honestly though anything edible sounded great, before he’d been kind of on a determined mission so he hadn’t been thinking about eating but now he was kind of starting to feel hungry after the mention of food.

When they first started cooking the omelet they had tried making the food together but when Mabel had sent him to heat up the oil on the pan he may have started a small fire, and Mabel wouldn’t let him wash the vegetables since he ‘didn’t even know how to wash his own clothes’ which he did know how to do but washing clothes was a waste of time and he was a busy guy. So basically all Dipper was allowed to really do was hand Mabel ingredients.

His thoughts went to Great Uncle Ford as he watched his sister beat the eggs.

“You know he’ll crack eventually right?” His sister suddenly said, she probably could sense the direction of where his thoughts were heading. That and his sister would never miss an opportunity to make a pun, cracks? While she had eggs Mabel seriously?

He groaned and dragged his hands down his face, “I know but it’s frustrating, whether he ‘lets’ us or not we’re going to try and be hunters so this whole stubbornness isn’t getting anyone anywhere,” he complained and he saw his sister try to suppress a laugh. He gave her a look because he didn’t really see how there was anything in that that Mabel could have found funny.

“What?” Dipper asked her because he didn’t see what about any of what he said was funny. Though Mabel could find the humor in nearly everything. Even the weirdest things it could be a little concerning sometimes.

“Well it’s not like your not suborn Dipper,” Mabel told him barely able to hold in how amusing she found the suggestion Great Uncle Ford was the only one in this shack was stubborn and Dipper couldn’t help rolling his eyes because come on! Really Mabel? 

It wasn’t that he really minded Mabel comparing him to their Great Uncle, Great Uncle Ford was well a great man and practically a hero not only did he have a brilliant mind but he also worked hard to keep people safe by fighting soul sucking monster for years. It was hard not to look up to the man you just had to read one of his journals to tell how amazing he was and any other circumstance Dipper might have felt proud to be compared to him. He just wishes that stubbornness wasn’t the first quality someone pointed out that they shared.

“But you know Dipper Grunkle Ford has his reasons too I guess,” Mabel said in a quiet and much calmer voice that it was hard to believe that she had just been barley suppressing laughter a few seconds ago. She was looking down and suddenly seemed incredibly focused on the eggs.

“I know that Mabel of course he has his reasons but can’t he see this is important to me?” He asked bitterly as Mabel started cooking the omelet. He watched as his twin stood cooking in silence for a few minutes looking as if she was thinking hard about something almost as if she were trying to find the right words to say.

“Yeah, but I think this is all also kind of important to him too,” His sister whispered quietly not looking away from the cooking food and then she was quiet not even humming like she usually did when cooking the only sound in the kitchen was that of the cooking food. Dipper found himself looking up and he was almost convinced that he imagined it since Mabel usually didn’t do anything quietly but the fact that she suddenly wasn’t willing to look at him in the eye at that moment was proof that she had in fact said it.

“Mabel-“ he began when an unfamiliar voice coming from the front door interrupted him. The twin’s conversation practically forgotten as there heads turned in surprise at the sound that was coming closer and closer.

“Hey Ford I heard you got back! I’m just going to let myself in! God damn something smells amazing did you get take out? So why’d you leave town so suddenly any…way?” The voice belonged to a girl in her early twenties, the first thing Dipper noticed about her was her red hair and a presence that seemed kind of laid back, she’d come in into the kitchen and froze when she saw them. Everyone in the kitchen stood perfectly still not knowing how to approach the situation.

Her eyes began studying them carefully as soon as she processed that there were two teens standing before her and Dipper could immediately tell that her laid back presence did not give an accurate picture of her true personality.

He should probably say something shouldn’t he? Unfortunately he was frozen in place, what the hell was he supposed to do? Whatever shock might have frozen him from seeing an unexpected person walk into the shack luckily didn’t seem to affect his sister however.

“Hi there! I’m Mabel Pines and that’s my brother Dipper!” Mabel said greeting the redhead cheerfully, his sister probably would have gone up to hug the unfamiliar girl if she didn’t want to keep her cooking from burning, which is honestly one of the mot responsible things Dipper has ever seen his twin do. Well they did say that loss could make people grow as a person.

The red head looked taken aback for a moment, meeting Mabel for the first time probably was quite an experience after all, but them a look of confusion spread over the strangers face as she seemed to realize something his sister had said.

“Wait Pines isn’t that…?” The red head muttered with some sort of realization dawning in her eyes when Great Uncle Ford rushed into the room. The older man must have heard the red head come in just like they did and it looked like he had rushed over as quickly as he could probably to prevent any misunderstandings as he was slightly out of breath.

“Hey Grunkle Ford!” Mabel greeted as their Great Uncle paused to catch his breath, though any one could tell that Great Uncle Ford was healthier than most people his age or heck maybe most people in general Dipper guesses that anyone would be out of breath if they had a sudden surprise visit from someone, had to drop what they were doing and rush to the other side of the house.

“Ford do you know these kids?” The red head asked as their Great Uncle met her question with a look of exasperation. Dipper was feeling his own look of exasperation fall onto his face as well, even though he and Mabel had only been living there for a little bit this was still their home now technically it was the red head that should be out of place.

“Miss Corduroy I gave you a key in case of emergencies and to mind the house when I out of town for any reason, not so you could barge in whenever you pleased,” the older man said and by the sound of his voice this was not the first time they’d had a conversation like this. Why Great Uncle Ford would give his key to someone Dipper didn’t know, it didn’t seem wise when there were spirits that could try and come after you.

Miss Corduroy just shrugged “hey if I didn’t barge in every now and again you probably would never leave the house,” she said and at that moment Dipper was sure that his Great Uncle was barely holding back a groan Dipper would feel sorry for him but he had been stubborn on the whole ‘helping them become hunters’ issue all day so the older man should taste some frustration to make up for it.

Wait, Miss Corduroy? He’d heard that name before was she one of the people Great Uncle Ford worked with. It’s not like he could just ask could he? Spirits seemed to be secret and it was probably best to keep it that way or it cause a panic so it’s not like he could just go mentioning it, how would he explain himself if she was just a normal person.

“So are you a hunter that hunts murder monsters too?” Mabel asked curiously breaking Dipper out of his thoughts; the room was deathly silent for a few moments processing what Mabel had just said while Dipper just stared at his sister in disbelief not believing what she had just done.

She just came out and said it!

“Um what she means is…” Dipper fumbled looking for a logical way to explain what Mabel said without possibly revealing the secret of spirits or making either of them sound crazy okay maybe this wasn’t so bad people always thought he and Mabel were kind of weird most of them time so maybe he could play this off. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when noticed Miss Corduroy smirked.

“You bet I am kid! So Ford you gonna introduce me? What are they newbies or something?” Miss Corduroy asked his Great Uncle frowning at the last question. Dipper wanted to but in and say that yes they were or at least they planned to be when Great Uncle Ford suddenly spoke.

“No!” he said sternly causing the red head to raise her eyebrow as the older man cleared his throat before continuing, “This is my Great niece and nephew Dipper and Mabel, who will be staying here from now on” he explained introducing them. Dipper found himself giving an awkward wave as Mabel took the pan off the stove. 

“Hey Grunkle Ford lunch is ready!” she declared before turning to the red head “Want to have some? We’re having cheese and mushroom omelets.” Mabel offered as a grin spread over the older girls face and she nodded enthusiastically and started making her way to the table. 

“Oh heck yes! I’m never one to turn down free food!” she said as Dipper went to grab an extra plate. Everyone sat down as Mabel started serving the food; Dipper felt his stomach grumble as the smell of his sister cooking hit him. This was one of those ‘you don’t realize your hungry until there’s food right in front of you moments’ isn’t it?

“Oh man this looks amazing!” the red headed girl complimented before she began eating they all ate in silence with the occasional compliment to Mabel’s cooking skills and Mabel either attempting or pretending to be ‘humble’. After Mabel had once declared that she did everything right the first time round as a joke when Dipper once asked her if she ever wished she could go back in time to change one moment after an embarrassing moment with a crush on their first day of high school he figured Mabel had lost all rights to the word humble.

It was the lumberjack hunter or ‘Wendy’ as she had introduced herself that finished first, she placed her fork down and looked at the twins Great Uncle expectantly, “So Ford when were you going to tell me your family were coming over?” she asked grabbing everyone at the table’s attention. It didn’t particularly surprise Dipper that Great Uncle Ford hadn’t told t other hunters about them yet since everything had happened suddenly but he wondered what he had planned to tell them, what had he even planned to tell the twins about the hunters that apparently visited his house since it seemed Great Uncle Ford’s original plan had been to keep the twins in the dark about spirits?

The moments of silenced stretched for a bit before Great Uncle Ford cleared his throat and responded to Wendy’s question “well as you are aware I had to leave on a family emergency where I had to go pick up Mabel and Dipper-“ Great Uncle Ford began to explain when Dipper suddenly found himself interrupting the older man, maybe it wasn’t the best time to do it and could just cause another argument but the words were coming out of his mouth before Dipper could even stop them and something told him this was an opportunity that he shouldn’t pass up.

“A spirit called Cipher killed our parents and Mabel and I want to be hunters!” Dipper declared suddenly cutting his Great Uncle off, he couldn’t believe he and just blurted it out but then again if Mabel could just come out and say things then so could he!

Every one in the room seemed to freeze, silence feeling louder than anything Wendy’s expression had turned to one of a slightly shocked ‘oh’. The silence dragged on and Dipper was starting to slightly regret saying anything but his determination strongly outweighed any regret or hesitation.

“For the last time Dipper it is far too dangerous for you two!” Great Uncle Ford angrily protested frustration dripping from the older mans voice as he slammed his fist on the table heatedly. Dipper felt himself jump back slightly at that but he held strong, a quick glance towards his twin gave him all the courage he needed. Mabel was looking at him reassuringly as if telling him not to back down which is just what he needed as he continued to stare his Great Uncle down.

“Hmm… I think you should consider training them,” Wendy’s voice cut through the tension like a knife and brought Great Uncle Ford and Dipper out of the death lock stare they had been in with surprise as they had been so caught up in their argument that they had some how forgotten about the redhead for a small moment.

It was official Dipper had decided that he liked this hunter, even though she didn’t have to it looked like she was on his and Mabel’s side and that’s all the reason he really needed to like some one. Besides she seemed liked a pretty cool person to be friends with.

Great Uncle Ford was deathly quiet for a slight second before taking in a sharp breath, “Dipper, Mabel could you two please give me a moment to talk with Miss Corduroy alone?” Great Uncle Ford asked and Dipper felt his anger begin to return. Not only was Great Uncle Ford not listening to him but he was also going to argue with someone who was agreeing that they should be hunters? That wasn’t fair!

Dipper was about to protest and demand that anything Great Uncle Ford wanted to Wendy he could say in front of him and Mabel when his twin suddenly clamped her hand over his mouth stopping him from speaking already talking over him before he could try to complain.

“No problem Grunkle Ford we’ll get out of your hair for a bit!” Mabel said hurriedly already dragging Dipper out of the room despite his protests, he struggled slightly to try to get out of his twins grasp but unfortunately to say Mabel was still stronger than him but then again Mabel was stronger than most people Dipper could confidently say that his twin sister was probably the strongest person he knew.

Once they were out the room Mabel finally released Dipper from her grasp, Mabel always had a habit of dragging him around but she was dragging him around a lot today. That was at least twice today and they had only just had lunch. “Mabel what the hell! She was on our side we should be helping her!” Dipper complained in frustration, it seemed like nearly no one was on his side right now and he was starting to feel fed up. He thought Mabel at least understood how important this was to him; she had to feel the same way he did didn’t she?

He looked at his twin who was rolling her eyes at him as if she couldn’t believe the way he was acting, “use your head Dipper, Wendy has spent more time with Grunkle Ford than we have don’t you think she’d have more of a chance convincing him to train us than we would?” she asked him rhetorically stopping the argument he had been prepared to have with her because he guess she did have a point “lets just have faith in the cool friendly hunter okay Dipper?” Mabel said to him reassuringly giving him a pat on the shoulder before walking away ignoring his slight grumbling that they should help Wendy when she was arguing for their sake at least.

Dipper watched as his twin walked away before giving a slight glance to where Wendy and Great Uncle Ford were talking, even though she had just met them he was glad that Wendy was willing to at least talk for them and he was grateful for that. He just hoped the other hunter could convince Great Uncle Ford since he hadn’t been having any luck.

 

\---

The night that Mabel had found out about spirits and their existence as well as the fact that those spirits had killed her parents as well as numerous family members was the night that she got exactly no sleep. As anyone might have guessed it was all a lot to process.

It was a lot to think about and she didn’t really know what to make about all of it; while people called her weird she knew they did she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise she still had a sense of what was real and what was not real. She wasn’t exactly like Dipper who had always believed that there was more out there and that there was some sort of conspiracy or secret waiting to be unlocked. For Mabel while she saw the world with a sense of wonder she also had a what you see is what you got kind of deal.

Mabel liked to believe she saw things to their fullest potential you know? Nothing impossible so when she learnt that the monsters under your bed and the things that go bump and creek in the night were real and they were basically coming to get her family specifically she had to do a long reevaluation on her life. 

It was all basically impossible yet it was true and Mabel wasn’t sure how much she truly understood about the world of spirits and hunters. She felt like she and her twin had opened Pandora’s box here. While she had originally been angry at the spirits for everything they had done as all the revelations had died down and Grunkle Ford had taken a break from their questions that left Mabel alone with her thoughts and slowly Mabel had felt some of that anger loosen its hold on her as other feelings made its way inside of her.

There were a lot of thoughts and feelings inside Mabel right now keeping her up and denying her the bliss that would be sleep and the most prominent one was concern. Namely concern for Dipper; she knew that her twin was now determined to be a hunter no matter what danger or cost. Some people might think they were crazy for wanting to go after spirits right after learning about them and heck maybe they were how many kids were like ‘you fight murder ghost monsters? I want in!’?

But Dipper had always wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself, her brother had always felt like he wanted some cool kind of purpose and Mabel would usually roll her eyes at him and joke that he wasn’t the protagonist, chosen one of some lame book but now there was something big. According to Grunkle Ford there could be spirits and hunters all over the world and the Pine’s family were special because they caught the attention of a particularly powerful one some how. Dipper could be part of something bigger than himself and stopping a super evil, big bad spirit to avenge their parents and countless other family member’s seemed like a pretty good purpose though now that she thought about it maybe not the most healthy purpose.

To be honest Dipper finding his own path had honestly always kind of scared Mabel, the idea of growing up was terrifying and sometimes she wished she could just stay the same forever. Dipper was like her best friend and she always felt like one day he would go down some kind of path that she couldn’t follow so part of her was trying to tell her that she should be relieved. If she and Dipper both became hunters they could stick together it was a path that she could actually follow Dipper down it was something that they could do together, they could be like hunter twins!

But genuinely there was a part of Mabel that was scared of going after these monsters that took so many family members away; she was scared that they would take Dipper away. That was probably more than enough reason for her to become a hunter though right? Protecting Dipper like she had always done? But school bullies and murder monsters were probably in a different ball park and she didn’t know whether it would be better to protect Dipper by trying to convince him to live a normal life.

But she knew before the idea had even popped into her head that it would never work, Mabel had seen the determination in Dipper’s eyes and knew that there was nothing she could do to change the path Dipper was on. He was going to be a hunter no matter what nothing would be able to stop him; the Pines family was famous for their stubbornness. Once they got an idea in their head they just kept rolling with it. So the only thing Mabel could really do to truly protect her brother was to join him.

She kept telling herself that it would be fine but Mabel desperately wished that there weren’t doubts swirling around her. Blurg this wasn’t fair! She was so good at being all bouncy and happy when she was around people but every time she was left alone with her thoughts she got all doubty and scared and worried and it was genuinely depressing sometimes. She’d been working on dealing with her negative emotions but it was really hard.

Of course she was an expert when she was helping out other people with their problems but when it get to her own if she was being truthful she would have to admit that she did not have any clue as to what she was doing. She was as much of a disaster as her brother sometimes; she was a fabulous disaster with a great personality and usually a super cute sweater but a disaster nonetheless.

So Mabel was left with a bunch of uncomfortable thoughts that she genuinely didn’t want to think about which of course meant that those uncomfortable thoughts were all she could think about and stayed awake the entire night, she was nearly one hundred percent sure that Dipper had gotten more sleep than her which was clearly a sign of a huge problem.

Dipper and Grunkle Ford had kicked off the day with constant arguing which Mabel decided to stay a little bit clear of; she didn’t really like confrontation all that much. Why couldn’t everyone just get along? It wasn’t that hard! She liked everyone! Well she liked most people but that was close enough!

She was watching the conversation in secret though of course. For someone who was absolutely deserving of being the center of the universe always, Mabel also had some pretty good spy skills if she said so herself. Some might call it ‘eavesdropping’ but she preferred to think of it as ‘information gathering skills’. The argument between her Grunkle and her twin was kind of like watching tennis a constant back and forth with neither side really letting up. Dear god these two were stubborn for every argument one made the other would give two counter arguments.

To be honest the argument just simply kept going round in circles and wasn’t moving anywhere. Mabel briefly wondered if it was possible for an argument to last forever before she was distracted by her thoughts when the yelling suddenly stopped and looking into the room Mabel saw Grunkle Ford and Dipper glaring at each other in silence, neither one backing down. There was a silent challenge from each side, the tension in the room was so thick you could probably cut it with a knife and Mabel didn’t really want to get in the middle of that but she kind of had too because as always her family was lost without her and the boys looked as though they were about to start an even worse argument and Mabel had to make sure she nipped that in the bud.

She managed to drag Dipper away and calm him down; she felt bad leaving Grunkle Ford on his own to calm down though. Grunkle Ford seemed to be the kind of person that might be calmer on their own but Mabel thought that was sad. She had to admit that she definitely didn’t know Grunkle Ford as well as she knew Dipper and was going to have to learn more about him to figure out all the tricks to keep him happy and help out when he was feeling blue.

For now though Mabel resolved to stick with what she knew she could do and worked on keeping Dipper from acting reckless; she needed him to calm down before her twin did anything that he regretted. Dipper tended to work things up in his head too much and Mabel had to drag him back to reality sometimes. Right now Dipper was convinced that being a hunter was the only way for him to move forward and maybe it was but she had to keep her twin from going out of control just like he kept her under control when she was at risk of going overboard on an idea that she had.

Mabel didn’t really know what to think when the hunter chick walked through the door surprising pretty much everyone with her sudden appearance except maybe ‘new friend!’ because while she had sent a few messages to Pacifica Mabel was still in need of making friends in this new town. Maybe she’d even find her people! Whenever she was ever having a particularly bad day and felt like she didn’t really fit in with her peers or felt like something was wrong with her and maybe she really was weird the bad kind of weird her parents would reassure her that she just hadn’t found her people yet and one day she would and she would have friends that not only got her but appreciated her and were totally on her wave length. 

Mabel had been dreaming about finding her people ever since she could remember, it was like how some kids dreamt about finding their soul mate and stuff though Mabel was also hoping to find her soul mate. Lots of hopes in a town where monsters lived.

Mabel’s impression of Wendy was that the older girl was cool, confident and super pretty and the fact that she was a hunter like Grunkle Ford also meant that Wendy was a total badass probably. Definitely someone anyone should look up to and Mabel was starting to admire Wendy especially when the older girl seemed to want to talk to Grunkle Ford for them; she didn’t have to but Mabel always appreciated when people wanted to help each other.

After calming Dipper down and stopping her twin from working himself up when Grunkle Ford asked them to leave she decided to sneak around and listen in on the conversation; she didn’t exactly want Dipper to know she was spying on their Grunkle especially after all the times she said they should trust him so she had to wait until Dipper went back to their room before getting close to the kitchen again so she had actually missed a lot of the conversation but she thinks Wendy might have been making some progress. She thinks, she couldn’t be sure.

“-I just don’t get it Ford, you told me those other hunters have kids that are the same age as those two and me and my brothers have been doing this since we were kids. Heck I learned how to hold and axe before I could even walk” Mabel heard Wendy say as she started to tune into the conversation. Mabel had to keep herself from giggling at the red heads last comment though Mabel would think that learning to hold an axe seemed more like a lumberjack thing than a hunter thing.

Mabel noted that there was the mention of those ‘other hunters’ again, Mabel wondered who they were and how many hunters were even out there. If there were a lot of hunters out there that must mean a lot of spirits, which was kind of terrifying to think about. Though Mabel was mostly curious at the fact that there were hunters the same age as her and Dipper, she wondered what they were like.

Mabel was drawn from her musings by Grunkle Ford’s tiered sigh and she shook her head to clear away her thoughts and remind herself that there would be plenty of time to wonder about the other hunters later right now she was dealing with the hunters right here in Gravity Falls.

“My brothers and I, grammar miss Corduroy,” Grunkle Ford corrected and Mabel found herself rolling her eyes because really Grunkle Ford grammar wasn’t *that* important and there were other things to focus on fight now. Wendy seemed to share her sentiment because the older girl gave a loud groan and yelled ‘boo!’ while giving a thumb down before allowing the older man to continue speaking “and besides you and your brothers and even Roxanne’s children, were all raised for this life Dipper and Mabel… they weren’t. They deserve as much of a normal life as I can give them. What happened to their parents is my fault; Cipher is my responsibility-“ Grunkle Ford explained when Wendy cut him off suddenly with an incredibly loud and frustrated groan.

“Holly shit Ford I know you’re my boss but shut up no he isn’t! He’s an evil little chaos monster and you need to stop thinking of your self as the protagonist in some bullshit novel. Those kids aren’t going to have a normal life no matter what because spirits decided to take away someone’s loved one like they always do. The funny thing is Dipper and Mabel are one of the lucky ones that know about spirits because that gives them a chance at revenge I don’t know what my dad would have done with himself if he never had the chance to avenge mo-“ Wendy began to rant at Grunkle Ford clearly getting frustrated at what Mabel could easily guess were her Grunkle Ford’s repeated statements. She frowned in concern, as the older girl cut herself off obviously the conversation must have been heading towards a touchy subject. Mabel didn’t really know how to feel about seeing the lumberjack loose her cool like that, especially for someone who had a confident and laid back aura like Wendy had. Mabel got the feeling she might have just seen and heard something she probably shouldn’t have seen or heard.

She noted Wendy take a few frustrated breaths before the older girl stood up muttering about needing some air for a sec, Mabel had been so caught up in the seen unfolding before her that she forgot to move away from the door as Wendy got close to it so when the red head opened the door Mabel had absolutely no time to even scramble away. The too girls stood in silence staring at each other for a few long uncomfortable moments of silence. Mabel kind of felt like screaming on the inside just a little bit but she figured that it was best in this situation to act casual, right?

Yes, she could do this. It was easy. Just act casual. Casual.

“How long have you been there?” Wendy asked breaking the silence looking at her with concern clear on her face which Mabel understood since they had only just met and Mabel had probably witnessed some intense and probably personal stuff going on in there and Mabel figured that the two girls weren’t quite there yet when displaying all that baggage to one another.

Now the thing that Mabel should have done was lie, lie like she had never lied before and say that she had just got there and that she was getting a drink or something from the kitchen. Unfortunately her parents had raised her to be honest and it was going to doom her one-day because what came out of her mouth was a simple ‘yes’.

As soon as she said it Mabel had too keep herself from hitting herself, yes wasn’t even an answer to Wendy’s question! Come on Mabel get your head in the game! She was supposed to be acting casual she could do casual she wasn’t Dipper after all! The older girl laughed with a ‘what?’ before Mabel cleared her throat with a cough and attempted to answer Wendy’s question a second time.

“I mean it wasn’t like I was here for the whole thing just maybe most of it,” Mabel admitted and instead of a more embarrassed or even upset or angry look crossing over the lumberjacks face the other girl actually raised an eyebrow and looked pretty impressed. Now Mabel did tend to have that affect on people, she was pretty impressive but she was curious as to what in particular she could have done to impress Wendy aside from the traditional natural Mabel impressiveness.

“You’re telling me that you managed to listen in on most of our conversation without with me or Ford noticing?” Wendy remarked a smirk forming on her face before turning back towards Grunkle Ford “You know boss I think these kids might just have a bunch of talent that would be a waste not to use.” Wendy noted and Mabel looked over at her Grunkle and noticed that his face looked quite surprised as well. Mabel didn’t really think that her spy skills were all that impressive most of the time she just used them to sneak up on Dipper and surprise him because the little cream he gave out in surprise was always incredibly fun. But of course she was flattered that Ford and Wendy seemed to think that her fun little thing was talent.

Though if they really wanted to see talent they should watch Mabel make a sweater. Mabel could knit a new sweater every day so she would never had to wear the same sweater twice if she felt like it. Now that was talent in her opinion.

“Mabel deer, do you any your brother truly want to become hunters?” Grunkle Ford asked quietly looking at her with an expression that Mabel could not quite read. His face was tiered but there was expectancy in his expression for Mabel’s answer. She wasn’t sure what kind of answer Grunkle Ford was hoping for or expected to hear. The way he had been acting would probably make anyone think that he desperately wanted her to say no but something about Grunkle Ford told her that maybe he wanted to train Dipper and Mabel; to bring his family closer and let them into his world.

After all nothing was more import to a Pines than family.

If this had been Dipper in her place that Grunkle Ford was asking this question to she knew that her brother would jump at the chance to say ‘of course they wanted to be hunters’ but it was Mabel answering the question and Mabel knew that if her words were ever going to reach Grunkle Ford’s heart and affect his decision in anyway she was going to give her most honest most Mabel answer to show how she truly felt.

Though saying how she truly felt was probably a lot harder to actually do especially considering Mabel herself wasn’t really that sure exactly how she felt about all of this. It wasn’t that long ago when all she had to worry about was if she collected enough seashells and now she was trying to decide if she wanted to risk her life fighting murder monsters.

But maybe she was just over complicating things in her head. She really should try not to do that after all over complicating things was really more of Dipper’s sort of thing. If she took all the stress and all the fear and all the heartbreak and all the monsters out of it what did she have? She had her twin who was determined to walk down what was most definitely an incredibly dangerous road and there was probably nothing anyone on this earth could do to actually stop him and even if everyone in existence told him not to do this Dipper would probably find a way to do this.

So Mabel had the option of following her twin and sticking with him or trying to figure out something else for herself even if she didn’t really have anything and let them both go their separate ways down separate paths. When she put it like that it became obvious to Mabel that it was no real choice at all, she knew what she had to do she had to stand by and be there for her twin they were mystery twins forever after all!

Standing up as straight as she could manage she stared at both Wendy and her Grunkle Ford with determination flashing in her eyes and both hunters almost looked taken off guard with the intensity of her gaze though maybe she was just imagining it. Then slowly but with a voice of more conviction and certainty than she even knew that she even had she told them “there is probably no one on this earth that I know as well as my brother and I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is nothing in this universe that will keep him from becoming a hunter because he has got his mind set on it and I am going to tell you that I will let nothing keep me from supporting and protecting my brother,” Mabel told them honestly hoping that she had made her stance clear enough. She might not be all that interested in being a hunter honestly but Dipper was and she was going to look out for him no matter what.

The two hunters stared at Mabel in silence before Wendy broke the silence with a slow clap, which was kind of cool. “Holly shit Ford if you don’t train those kids then I will” Wendy announced with a look in her eyes which Mabel thought was pride, Mabel could feel herself blushing slightly at the silent praise that the older girl was sending her way but she appreciated it. The two girls found themselves looking expectantly at Ford waiting for his response before his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“I suppose with both you and your brother living here with me there will always be some sort of natural risk or danger which it would be better to prepare you both for more than anything else,” Grunkle Ford relented though there seemed to be some kind of pride shinning in his eyes as Mabel felt a smile crawl onto her face along with a sense of amazement and disbelief as she began to comprehend her Grunkle’s words.

“Oh my god Ford does this mean?” Wendy began to ask with excitement in her voice and it sounded like she might be happier about this than the twins though they hadn’t told Dipper yet and he might get excited enough to do some kind of fan girl scream. She seemed proud and excited though Mabel wondered if maybe she was just happy that the seemingly incredibly stubborn Grunkle Ford had actually changed his position on something.

A fond smile crept onto Grunkle Ford’s face as he raise up a hand to stop Wendy before he continued to speak “I just believe it will be wise to train them for any possible upcoming dangers and after their training is complete then they can decide what path they wish to take but yes Mabel dear you can tell your brother that he wore me down I will train you both.” Grunkle Ford told them and Mabel felt herself barely able to contain the excitement building up in her. Dipper was not going to believe this! She felt her smile grow wider at the thought of her twins happiness.

Something told Mabel that from now on whatever happen was going to be interesting and amazing and her brother and her were about to go on an adventure nothing like they had ever experienced before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! I finally got this chapter out it was taking forever to write! Mabel and Dipper are finally going to be training to be hunters which we will see next chapter (whenever that is) and other plot points any maybe even meet Candy and Grenda who knows how things will go?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is basically what's happening in Gravity Falls around the time of Of Heaven and Earth, is you haven't read that story then I recommend that you do. I'm not very experienced but I hope you like this.
> 
> Also I’m new to writing on AO3 so I can’t change text colour or do images but since Mabel and Dipper are both GT it might be confusing in just black so I wrote out their pesterlog in color on word and posted it on my Tumblr here is the link http://our-happygirl500-fan.tumblr.com/post/151163771963/pesterlog-from-my-fic-caught-between-heaven-and


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